Confinement
by Milsap
Summary: A Raccoon City police officer has the week from hell when the T-Virus infects the sleepy city. Putting himself above and beyond the line of duty to save anyone he can. Includes several characters unseen in the games.
1. Chapter 1

Resident Evil- Confinement

April 2nd 2003- 1357:

A spring day in Stoneville Colorado: A tenth grade class was waiting for their teacher to come back from a toilet break. The desks were arranged in a five by five square, directly facing a desk and a large whiteboard at the front of the class that had all of the teacher's things on them such as lesson plans, stationery and a picture of him and his wife. On the right hand wall next to the door to the classroom was a large map of the world, with each country filled in a vivid colour with the US and Colorado flags hanging either side of the whiteboard. The children were messing around as they usually did when the teacher was out the room- Throwing paper aeroplanes around and sitting on other peoples' desks while the more 'goody-goody' children sat in their desks as if they were stuck there with glue. Outside the windows on the left hand side of the room opposite the door into the room, green picturesque scenery could be seen as far as the eye could see, with the Arklay Mountains providing a stunning natural backdrop. On the other side of this mysterious mountain region was the rebuilt Raccoon City, once again a thriving mountain community with a larger population than before and free from the influence of the Umbrella Corporation. Knowing his class was messing around in his absence, the teacher burst into the room, catching everyone by surprise.

"Ok class, settle down" The teacher boomed as he entered the room, causing his tenth grade class to instantly take their seats and all have their eyes forward. He took a whiteboard pen and began to write. "Since it's the last day before the Easter break I thought I'd go over something different with you all." He wrote 'The Midwest in The Late 20th Century' in large letters on the board and faced the class while sitting on the corner of his desk. "I'm sure you've heard the question beginning with the words 'Where were you when…' such as 'where were you when the twin towers were attacked?' or in my generation's case 'where were you when the Berlin Wall fell', or 'where were you when Raccoon City was bombed'." He stood up and moved a mannequin into the middle of the floor in between the whiteboard and the class. It was a police uniform, with the white letters on the front faded and blood covering the front, with small tears and frayed seams on the blue shirt. An emblem was displayed on each sleeve and the mannequin had also been outfitted in a pair of tactical gloves as well as a pair of black boots, the latter of which the dark blue trousers had been tucked in to, with a pair of knee pads on top of the trousers.

"Mr Endsleigh" One of his class members began, raising her hand. "Is that a police uniform?" Mr Endsleigh smiled.

"Yeah" he said with a slight laugh. "It's a police uniform. And there's a rather interesting story behind it, kinda ties in with the last question of where I was when Raccoon City was bombed." He looked at the mannequin before turning back to the class. "Bring your desks in a little closer and gather round while I tell it to you."

July 25th 1998- 0630:

S.T.A.R.S Alpha Team's helicopter, which had been running on fumes since it left the Arklay Mountains, finally landed back in Raccoon City on the roof of the R.P.D's building. Emerging from the grey Bell 105 were the members of S.T.A.R.S that had participated in the investigation into the gruesome murders that had been occurring: Chris Redfield, Jill Valentine, Barry Burton; Rebecca Chambers and in a very critical state- Richard Aiken. The five officers who greeted them on the roof were struck with confusion: Where were the others? Wesker, Enrico, Joseph, Forest, Kenneth, Edward and Kevin were nowhere to be seen, and their helicopter was nowhere in sight either. Chris was holding Richard up and shouted at the five officers to call for an ambulance as Richard was lay down on the concrete to rest. One of the officers sprinted downstairs and within minutes an ambulance had shown up, with Chris giving very discreet orders to have him taken to a hospital away from Raccoon City.

"We'll get him over to Denver" the paramedic explained. "They've got an excellent poison treatment centre" Richard was loaded onto a gurney and taken away, and the S.T.A.R.S survivors began to come to terms with what they had seen.

"How much stuff did you bring back?" Chris asked Jill as they headed back towards their office.

"Enough" Jill replied. "I've got Kenny's video tape too, as well as the proof that Wesker was working for Umbrella." Rebecca caught up and stood in between them, blood covering her face and clothes from where Richard had bled all over her.

"There was another building close to where that other mansion was" She explained. "Plenty of stuff in there too, I'll hand it all over, then I'm getting out of town in the morning. I got some friends in Salt Lake City that I was at Harvard with I can stay with." Chris, Barry and Jill wished her well and Rebecca left for Utah the next afternoon, keeping sporadic contact with her comrades from there

One of the officers who was there when Alpha Team's transport arrived saw them talking. He was a friend of S.T.A.R.S, and was one of the officers who made Rebecca feel welcome when she first joined. That evening, when everyone had gone home, he made his way to the S.T.A.R.S office and knocked on the door. A voice beckoned him to come in and he poked his head through the door.

"Oh hey, Doug." Jill exclaimed, surprised to see him. "How are you doing?" Papers were being put into ring binders by Brad and Chris and loaded into cardboard boxes to be taken away, while Barry practically destroyed Wesker's desk to try and uncover any hard evidence of his involvement with Umbrella. Doug was in his standard R.P.D uniform of a light blue button up shirt, black trousers and black shoes. He was a traffic officer, and had been with the R.P.D since 1996, as well as being a childhood friend of Richard's. He was around the same age as Jill, about 23 years old and had short cut light brown hair that was gelled forward. He was a respected officer within the R.P.D in the same way the members of S.T.A.R.S were, but his application into the special tactics division was pushed aside for that of Joseph Frost, a rejection that potentially saved his life.

"Are you guys ok?" Doug asked, stepping a little further into the office and waving at Barry who was using a hammer to smash open the locked drawers on Wesker's massive desk.

"If we keep busy, then we should be alright I guess." Brad replied, only having seen the Tyrant and the Cerberus dogs throughout the whole ordeal. Jill produced Kenneth's video tape and put it into the video player next to Wesker's desk.

"We've shown this to about ten guys and all of them believe this to be a fake." Jill told him as she pushed play. Doug watched as the tape showed Kenneth shooting at a zombie only to be pinned to the floor and have his throat brutally ripped out by the undead monster that was attacking him.

"If that's a fake then that's some good acting and special effects." Doug commented, completely shocked at what he had just seen. Chris then showed him some of the files, diaries and other pockets of information they had taken from the mansion in the mountains. Doug's eyes the whole time wide.

"What do you make of it?" Chris asked him, out of uniform and wearing jeans, t-shirt and jacket. A plaster was on his forehead from where he had hit the floor after Plant 42 had dropped him after Rebecca had succeeded in killing it.

"I want to believe it, but something like that just seems too movie-like for me." Jill, Barry and Chris agreed, while Brad, who didn't want anything more to do with Umbrella's affairs, grabbed his things and went home, not saying a word to anyone.

The next day, Chris, Jill and Barry stormed in unannounced into Chief Irons' office, and presented all the evidence on the Chief's desk. The Chief, a portly man with side parted hazel hair and a moustache, gave each of the S.T.A.R.S members a strange look.

"What the hell do you three think you are doing?" He asked, standing up.

"Evidence" Chris replied, shoving the files into the Chief's face. "Everything that happened between May and July of this year in the mountains is documented here. The murders in the Arklay Mountains fit within the same time frame as the events in these diaries." Irons sat down and began flicking through a blue diary with the name 'Jack May' on the front written on a white label. The diary was covered in blood and parts of it torn, with the writing becoming more deranged and rushed as the diary progressed.

"The murders in the Arklay Mountains were caused by bears. The coroner's report has finalised that." Irons replied, leaning back in his leather chair and putting his hands behind his head.

"If they were bears" Jill continued with the argument. "How come only five of the thirteen men sent in to investigate came home yesterday morning. Did you not see Richard's injuries?"

"Jill," Irons said to her, sitting forward in his chair now, "When Richard was attacked by those bears it may have been a little distressing for you, why not go home and take the rest of the week off?" Jill grabbed a glass paperweight off the table and threw it at the wall, knocking a stuffed Bald Eagle, a result of Irons' passion for taxidermy off its plinth and the paperweight smashing as it hit the floor.

"You're a dick _and_ an asshole" She snarled and left the office.

"I'm not entertaining this preposterous idea any further" Irons said casually. "Now get out of here." Reluctantly, Chris and Barry left and tried to find Jill. It was the beginning of an endless quest to uncover the Umbrella conspiracy. Their heads were telling them that they should just let it go and start all over again like Rebecca had done, but their hearts were telling them that the world had to know about the sick and twisted experiments that were going on in the Arklay Mountains: Innocent people being subjected to viral experiments that took their humanity away from them, and their friends and families not having a faintest idea as to where and why they disappeared, with the whole concept of zombies and blood sucking leeches being the imaginative brainchild of Hollywood writers. Over the next few days, the surviving S.T.A.R.S members began to distance themselves from not only the other officers in the R.P.D, but each other. Chris and Jill were the main investigators in this, going behind the back of their Chief to ensure that the truth was told. Their friend Doug on the other hand was beginning to notice the townspeople were beginning to act strangely . While he wasn't there when it all happened, he was starting to believe that something like what had happened existed. It actually made quite a bit of sense when he sat down and thought about it, and in a week had managed to convince three other officers that maybe what the S.T.A.R.S members were saying wasn't made up. However, his supervisor Marvin Branagh, an African American officer with close cut black hair and a beard; wasn't easily swayed.

"While I think the S.T.A.R.S members are incredibly talented guys" Marvin told him, "do you honestly believe all this stuff about Umbrella is true? They just make medicines that doctors prescribe to you, not bio-weapons with the potential to destroy the earth."

"I've read the reports" Another officer replied. "They've got a video and photographic evidence to prove it, but everyone's just claiming it was all an elaborate hoax. Why did only five of them come home?"

"Believe what you want to believe" Marvin sighed. "I know what I think. Lunch break's nearly over, you'd all better get back to duty." Ignoring his superiors' order and heading upstairs, Doug entered the S.T.A.R.S office. None of the S.T.A.R.S members were there and it was as clean and tidy as it had always been. Save for Chris' desk. Rebecca's desk, the tidiest of the seven in the room, had a piece of paper with a case report on it that hadn't been sent to her superiors for processing:

_On July 23rd, an MP vehicle was found inside the Arklay Mountains. Corpses of MP members and an unidentified body were found near the vehicle. According to the information from military authorities, the unidentified body was identified as former Marine 2__nd__ Lieutenant Billy Coen, who was sentenced the death penalty following a court-martial on July 22nd. _

_While Coen was on transfer via Navy MP escort, they must have experienced some kind of accident. The corpses were severely mauled, apparently torn apart by unidentified wild animals. The following day we returned to the location to recover the bodies but they were nowhere to be found. Military authorities have requested that we turn over Coen's body as proof of his death, but due to the circumstances described above, it will be a difficult task to recover the corpse. I am requesting that this case be temporarily closed until further notice. _

_Raccoon City Police Department_

_S.T.A.R.S. Bravo Team_

_Rebecca Chambers_

Doug saved this piece of information for the time being and began to search the rest of the office where Chris had written a letter to Chief Irons regarding the incident and how to go about investigating. However, due to the Irons' flat out refusal to look into the issue, the letter was just left on the desk, obsolete.

_Dear Chief,_

_Below is my account of what led up to the explosion of the mansion:_

_On July 23rd, S.T.A.R.S. Bravo Team, led by Captain Marini, went to investigate the bizarre homicides that occurred in the Arklay Mountains. After contact with team's chopper was lost, S.T.A.R.S. Alpha Team, lead by Captain Wesker and consisting of Wesker, Jill Valentine, Barry Burton, Joseph Frost, Brad Vickers and myself went in to search for them._

_We found the remains of Bravo team's helicopter on the ground. After landing we were immediately attacked by bloodthirsty dogs. We later discovered that these dogs were actually zombie dogs as they did not even feel our gunfire. After Joseph Frost was killed, we were forced to retreat to a nearby mansion. After further investigating the mansion, we learned that it was actually a secret laboratory of Umbrella Inc. All researchers were turned into zombies by some type of unknown virus. We also discovered that Umbrella was using that lab as a testing area for new Bio Organic Weapons._

_We found the dead bodies of some of the Bravo team members including Enrico Marini, Kenneth Sullivan, Forest Speyer, and Kevin Dooley, while Richard Aiken was severely injured and Rebecca Chambers was very much alive and well. However, Edward Dewey's body is the only body unaccounted for. We believe that those Bio Organic Weapons caused their deaths. After that we discovered that Captain Wesker was actually working with Umbrella and that both Alpha and Bravo teams were being used as live test subjects for the Bio Organic Weapons. Wesker had betrayed us! We barely managed to survive that nightmare. However, since the mansion exploded, there is little evidence to support our claims of Umbrella's secret lab or the Bio Organic Weapons._

_We suspect that Umbrella is somehow linked to bio-terrorism. In order to solve this mystery and put an end to the monsters that are still roaming the Arklay Mountains, I propose we launch a formal investigation into Umbrella. Thank you for your attention to this extremely important matter._

_Chris Redfield_

_S.T.A.R.S. Alpha Team_

This piece of information was also taken with Doug, and he immediately headed for the station's underground car park to get back to duty before Marvin got angry.

When he returned to the station at about half past three to fill in paperwork before clocking off, he headed to the first floor to go to the toilet. This involved heading through Irons' secretary's office, a nicely decorated room with a crescent shaped desk in the opposite corner to where the door to the main hall was, with a door to another hallway to the left of it. Potted plants were also present, as well as a row of three comfortable chairs on the left wall where people awaiting meetings with the Chief sat. The secretary was sat at her desk tapping away at her computer when she saw Doug.

"Hello Doug." She said cheerfully to him. "Have Chris and Jill cheered up any?"

"No" Doug replied. "Apparently Irons isn't listening to them, and lately he's been locked up tight in that office. Something is not right." The secretary lowered her voice to the point of a whisper and invited Doug in closer so he could hear.

"You're telling me. You know those two statues in the open area just before the S.T.A.R.S office? I leant on one of those yesterday and he began screaming at me. I thought he was going to rip my head off. If he's that protective of his 'art' then he shouldn't leave it in the open like that. I'd actually like to know where he's getting all the money to pay for it, because the stuff he's been bringing in lately has gotta be worth over $100,000 apiece. And what do you make, Doug? 20k a year?"

"Not even with overtime" Doug mused.

"Exactly" The secretary whispered. "I think there's a third party involved somewhere. Where else would he be getting the money?" Doug couldn't help but agree. No one else in the police department knew where the chief had been the last few days, but being the sort of person he is, Doug was getting exactly the information he needed without asking directly. He made a mental note of what the secretary had said so he could pass on the theory to Chris or Jill the next time he saw them.

"Keep this under your hat." Doug told her sternly. "If the Chief finds out your theory he's going to go completely mental." Doug went to the toilet and then back to his office to finish his paperwork. He had pulled over a drunk driver that afternoon and was filling in the report sheet so that it could be passed on, just like the ones written by Rebecca and Chris regarding Billy Coen and the mansion. As he had been through a pretty uneventful day in terms of his day job, he headed home to his apartment in the centre of the city- A five minute walk from the police station. While he was watching the Friday evening talk show where once again they were lampooning the Arklay Mountain 'hoax', his phone rang.

"Doug, it's Chris- has anyone mentioned anything regarding Irons?" Doug began to tell Chris the theory surrounding the Chief. Chris told Doug to keep a low profile for now and let S.T.A.R.S handle the Umbrella affairs, while Chris began a separate investigation into the Chief. Chris was trying to protect Doug in doing this- He didn't want to put him in any danger unnecessarily. As much as he appreciated any help from Doug, he wanted him out of the investigation, for his safety more than anything.

Jill was at her apartment in the northern part of downtown, leafing through newspapers in her room, looking for anything that had been overlooked. On the other side of the wall was the empty apartment of the Mallet family, all three members of which were killed in the Arklay Mountains just before the night the S.T.A.R.S members' lives were changed forever. It seemed only yesterday that the two young girls Regan and Lucy Mallet had knocked on her door with a friend of theirs asking if she would help them find their friend's missing dog. Jill had agreed and spent hours out with them searching until the dog was eventually found. The deaths of the two young girls saddened Jill deeply, and she hoped to track down those who created the T-Virus and allow Regan, Lucy and their mother to rest in peace. Out of the six members of Alpha Team that landed in the mountains on that night, Jill was by far the most gifted of all of them. She was a skilled mechanic, a competent knife fighter, an expert lock picker and a computer wizard, as well as being a sharp shot with a handgun and an incredibly athletic individual who was a black belt in ju-jitsu and Krav Maga, the hand to hand combat techniques developed by the Israeli Special Forces. After the events of July 24th, Jill's S.T.A.R.S handgun was permanently kept on her bedside table next to the picture of her and her boyfriend Simon Armstrong, a member of an accountancy firm who was currently in Boston on business, and set to be there for a while yet. That was good for Jill's state of mind- In Boston he would be safe, as he was far away from all the things going on in Raccoon City, and in the back of Jill's mind, an outbreak of the T-Virus in Raccoon City was a possibility, given that there were infected crows, mutated canines and the bodies of Kevin and Joseph lying in the forest, as there was no clean-up operation after the incident and the Bravo Team UH1 was never recovered. On the other hand though, she hoped that the force of the explosion of the mansion would have taken some of the monstrosities the virus had created out. She nearly jumped out of her skin as her phone rang. After catching her breath, she picked it up and put it to her ear. On the other end was Rebecca, letting her know that she was settled in Salt Lake City, ready to continue her life after seeing what they had seen.

Rebecca was sort of an enigma to her comrades in Bravo Team. She had blitzed through school and college due to her being a child genius and possessed a master's degree in chemistry and a degree in field medicine, yet underneath the smarts was your average eighteen-year-old girl who in any normal circumstances would have just finished senior high school. Wesker must have seen something in her otherwise she would have never made it into the Raccoon City Police Department in the first place. She had only been assigned to the unit for two months before Wesker ordered Enrico to load up the helicopter and go and investigate the murders in the Arklay Mountains. Despite being shy; inexperienced and being so young, she was one of only two survivors of Bravo Team, getting out relatively unscathed while her friend and mentor Richard Aiken was in Denver getting some much needed medical attention. Rebecca was eager to impress in S.T.A.R.S, and just wanted to be the best she could be. She was mature enough, but she did sometimes feel a little intimidated since she was much younger and shorter than everyone else, with Edward Dewey towering over her at 6'3 compared to Rebecca's 5'6. Getting out of Raccoon City was the best thing she could have done. After her two days of hell in the Arklay Mountains she wanted to get away from everything and find herself again as well as starting over. Instead of moving in with old college friends, she had found herself a small one bedroom flat in Salt Lake City Utah whilst getting a job as a nurse in the hospital there. The flat was paid for with help from her father who is a Marine Colonel stationed at Quantico while her mother is a head chef at a posh hotel in St Louis Missouri.

"It's good to hear from you" Jill said down the phone to her, happy that Rebecca couldn't see her face as she felt like she could burst into tears at any minute and have a complete breakdown. "How's the job?"

"I start tomorrow" Rebecca told her. "I got this little place in Salt Lake: It's not much but its home I guess. Perfect for getting over what's happened lately. How are you holding up?"

"I'm fine" Jill replied, a barefaced lie. "If I keep busy at the station then time will pass quicker. There are only three S.T.A.R.S members left now though. Barry's taken his wife and kids to Canada to get away from the city, so it's just me, Chris and Brad, and another officer is sort of tagging along with us- your friend Doug from traffic. So it looks like S.T.A.R.S will be finished. Might be worth doing what you've done actually"

"Well, I'm just glad that the three of you are ok. You take care of yourself, and don't work yourself too hard, okay?" Jill laughed as Rebecca denied any relationship with Doug before they said their goodbyes and put the phone down.

Three days later, things began to appear in the media that got Chris and Jill a little more paranoid:

_** AN EERIE VOICE FROM THE UNDERGROUND**__ Recently there is spooky talk around South Campbell Street. It is said that groans can be heard from the drainage system at night. It is easy to dismiss it as ghost story that middle school students love to talk about on camping nights. But the amount of missing people has increased rapidly at this locale for the past month. Eight people have gone missing. Strangely, the missing people have lot in common: They're all single white females aged eighteen to twenty three with beautiful blonde hair. The street was wrapped in a dense fog the day after they went missing. From the sewer drain which runs north-south along the street a woman's constrained voice could be heard for several hours. Of course the drainage sewers have been thoroughly investigated. But neither the missing persons nor any traces have been found. The Police Department has so far denied the relationship with the bizarre incidents that have rapidly increased after the 'mansion incident'. However the events must be related. _

_Rest to follow..._

_Report by Ben Burtolucci_

"Sound familiar?" Chris asked as he put the newspaper cutting down on Jill's desk. "There was that thing we saw skulking round the mansion, the one they kept doing those sick experiments on." Jill thought for a moment, pondering over the name of the person Chris was describing. Laura? Lorna? Leila?

Lisa.

"Lisa" Jill blurted out. "Lisa Trevor- The architect's daughter"

"How the hell could she have survived that fall in that coffin room as well as the explosion when Rebecca activated the self destruct system?" Chris asked. Jill put her head down on her desk.

"I don't know… I really don't know…"


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

No one really saw much of Chris after that day. For all intents and purposes, he had slipped off the radar completely and just vanished. Periodically he would head back to the police station and search through Wesker's things for a while before slipping back out again. Barry and Brad didn't want much else to do with the whole affair, and Rebecca not even in the same _state_ as them, determined to start her life again, while Chris was _obsessed_ with exposing Umbrella for what they had done. He had been keeping a diary since the incident in the mountains occurred, where he could log anything he and his friends uncovered, and was filling in the week's events.

_August 8th _

_I talked to the chief today once again, but he refused to listen to me. I know for certain that Umbrella conducted T-virus research in that mansion. _

_Anyone infected turns into a zombie. _

_But the entire mansion went up in that explosion; along with any incriminating evidence. _

_Since Umbrella employs so many people in this town, no one is willing to talk about the incident. _

_It looks like I'm running out of options. _

_August 17th _

_We've been receiving a lot of local reports about strange monsters appearing at random throughout the Arklay Mountain area. _

_This must be the work of Umbrella. _

_August 24th _

_With the help of Jill, I finally obtained information vital to this case. _

_Umbrella has begun research on the new G-virus, a variation of the original T-virus. _

_Haven't they done enough damage already?_

_I won't tell my sister about what we are doing, as doing so will put her in unnecessary danger_

_Please forgive me Claire._

After that final entry was written, Chris disappeared. Only Jill knew where he had gone, and she wasn't going to tell anyone about it. What they were doing was their secret. They were partners and best friends, and they trusted each other with their secrets, as telling anyone could spell disaster for one or the other.

Chris had actually moved out to one of his hideouts in Stoneville, the next major town from Raccoon City, where the bulk of the evidence they had seized from the mansion was kept away from prying eyes. The hideout was an abandoned one floor house in the north of the city, with one room that had mould growing all over the walls that had been covered in blank white wallpaper. The floor was made of wood and the planks could easily be lifted up to stash things in such as weapons, which is what Chris had done. Sub machine guns, shotguns and assorted handguns and their ammunition were being kept under there, some he had taken from the mansion, others he had stolen from the police station's armoury as he had full access at any time due to being a S.T.A.R.S member. A small table had been set up, improvised from a pair of milk crates stacked either end, with a large slab of wood placed on top. On here were all the files, notes, pictures, videos and diaries taken from the mansion, neatly arranged so they could be read and read again to see if there was anything he missed. Chris' S.T.A.R.S handgun was placed on the table, as well as his knife, and in his left hand he held a cigarette that he had just lit and was casually puffing away while he sorted through his things. When the cigarette couldn't be smoked any more, he dropped it and immediately put his foot on it to put it out, before pulling some nicotine gum from his pocket and beginning to chew. To him, it was another chapter in his crazy life. Everything he did seemed to go horribly wrong. From his days in school to his life in the U.S.A.F to the R.P.D, he couldn't find anything to go right. He wished he could have been like his friend Billy Rabitson, who had gone into the Massachusetts Institute of Technology when Chris joined the Air Force. Billy received straight A-grades all the way through his education while Chris was spending much of his school time in the principal's office for smoking, being rude to teachers and being a general nuisance. While it was daylight outside, the house was rather dark, owing to the fact that the windows had been boarded up with a cool draught blowing through the cracks in the glass and the gaps in the wood. As Chris piled some diaries on top of each other, the door swung open. A man in a dark blue tank top spilled into the room, looking quite exhausted and bruised, with nettle scratches on his left arm while his right arm was tattooed. He had dark hair slicked back and a beard had begun to grow as he had not shaved in a long time. Chris raised his handgun and was looking down the sights as he edged closer to the man.

"What the hell are you doing here?" He asked. The man stood up and raised his hands.

"It's alright" he claimed "I've just come out the mountains. There have been all sorts of crazy shit happening out there." Chris lowered the gun. Maybe this man knows something. He set up a collapsible fishing chair that he used to sit on and placed it in front of the tired gentleman, as well as providing him with something to eat and a can of Pepsi.

"Have a seat, and have something to eat." He said in a friendly way. The man gladly took a seat and devoured the ham sandwiches that Chris had brought with him. "Who are you exactly?"

"I'm Billy" The man explained with his mouth full. "Billy Coen, United States Marine Corps." Chris remembered that name. Rebecca had mentioned that name to him and mentioned him in her report.

"I thought you were dead" Chris said, confused. "You helped Rebecca out when Bravo Team's helicopter crashed, right?" Billy explained the full story to him. Everything from his false conviction of the murder of twenty three African villagers to the present, and how he and Rebecca had begun their friendship on a bad note, but proving their loyalty to each other by saving each others' lives on countless occasions that night.

"In which case" Chris told him as he slid over a notepad and pen from the other side of his table, knowing he could use Billy to his advantage. "Everything you know about Umbrella's experiments, I want to know. Billy agreed, telling Chris that once he had told him what he knew, he wanted nothing more to do with the affair, and just start a new life in the same way Rebecca had done, and feeling overjoyed that she had survived the further ordeal after they had split up after the events of July 23rd. Since Billy had proven himself innocent to him by not only explaining his false conviction, the fact he had saved Rebecca that many times was proof enough. Chris had a few fake documents with him as well, and gave Billy a new identity to protect him should the Marine Corps come looking for him since the Jeep never arrived at the base that Billy was being transferred to. Chris had brought the documents along with him as he was well aware Umbrella would be searching for him and the other surviving members, but Chris Redfield wouldn't back down from a fight. As far as he was concerned, he should let them come. It'd be more fun for him.

"I suggest getting as far away from Raccoon City as you possibly can Mr Coen." Chris told him sternly as Billy scribbled down his account of what happened. "I have a strange feeling that the virus is going to end up in Raccoon City." Billy raised his head, concern in his eyes.

"Where's Rebecca now?" He asked. Chris told him exactly where she was, and Billy thought it best to head out there to meet up with her and ask her to help get his name cleared. It's the only option he had as after his month long trek through the mountains had pushed his body to its limit, far further than any Marine was subjected to in his training. Chris provided Billy with some spare clothes as they were of similar build and height and Billy departed for Utah with Chris' best wishes. Their lives had been changed forever, and right now, they were far from being fixed. Doug continued his job as normal when news of Chris' disappearance was passed on to him, and Jill had also slipped off the radar, preferring to stay in the shadows to continue her investigation while Brad now worked as a regular street cop, while still wearing his S.T.A.R.S uniform. Doug was sat in the east offices when his friend Kevin Ryman when another officer approached him with a letter, with the R.P.D's letterhead at the top and filled with information.

"S.T.A.R.S has been disbanded" Kevin told him. "They're setting up a new division called the Select Police Force, although everyone's calling it the S.P.F. They want all the hands they can get. Not quite S.T.A.R.S, but at least we'll have a better chance at getting in. What do you think, buddy?" Doug took the letter and read it to himself:

_ Officers of the Raccoon City Police Department:_

_ Due to unforeseen circumstances and the sudden resignation/disappearance of several high profile Special Tactics and Rescue Service members, the Raccoon City Police Department has decided that with the sudden rise in crime and citizens mysteriously disappearing to set up a new department with the same special tactics based system used by S.T.A.R.S._

_ The Select Police Force will be made up of some of the finest officers in the Arklay County area, and we are looking for potential recruits who are currently serving within the Raccoon City Police Department who will be willing to volunteer._

_ The training will be accelerated, meaning that due to the problems this city is facing, you will be pushed through quickly to ensure the fears of this fine city's population are quelled and the city back to its safe and calm environment. Training will include advanced driving skills, training in sub machine gun and assault rifle use, sniper training and lock picking._

_If you are interested, please speak to either Rita at reception, Marvin Branagh in the west offices or myself to get your name on the list for training._

_ Good luck to all those who apply._

_ Raymond Douglas- Deputy Chief of the Raccoon City Police Department_

"I'm up for it." Doug smiled. "Let's get our names put down." They headed for reception to speak to Rita, a short blonde haired officer with her hair cut short similar to Rebecca's and wearing standard officer uniform of a light blue button up shirt, blue-grey trousers and a black tie that was clipped to the shirt half way down. She spoke with a southern accent and was rather fond of officers like Kevin, Doug and Marvin. Doug and Kevin were registered and the next day they were to begin their training.

It was indeed a steep learning curve. They were tackling different topics every day, and expected to grasp each concept in one day before moving onto the next part, with the intense training taking place over a week. On the first day it was firearms, the next day driving and the remaining three days being dedicated to special tactics work. The training took place out of the city, near the town of Applewood. The day before their training was to finish; Doug and Kevin were sat at a table in a bar near the centre of the town when another recruit approached them and asked to sit with them. He was about 5'11 in height and built like an average man. His hair was a light brown colour and parted close to one side, with the right side coming down slightly longer than the left. He was wearing the same navy blue trousers tucked into black boots that Doug was wearing, while Kevin's trousers were closer to a black colour. Doug was wearing a white short sleeved shirt while the other recruit was wearing a short sleeved black shirt with the long sleeved jacket that went over it was tied around his waist, with the protective panels removed.

"Mind if I sit with you guys?" The recruit asked. Doug and Kevin invited him to sit down.

"How are you getting on? Finding the training intense?" Doug asked him.

"I actually only started my training today, apparently the first lot of people who arrived were just to get the unit on its feet before they got more people in. I'm a full on rookie, never done any law enforcement before today, but I'm loving what I've done so far."

"Another optimist, just what we like to see" Kevin smiled. "What's your name buddy?"

"Leon" The recruit replied. "Leon S. Kennedy." The three of them sat and ate together, talking about the finer things in a man's life- Women and sports, whilst knocking back a couple of beers. The three seemed to like each other and became fast friends, but it was a short time together as it was soon time for Doug and Kevin to return to Raccoon City. They proudly wore their brand new uniforms as was to be worn by all the new S.P.F members, of which there were about twenty members. In contrast to the S.T.A.R.S members, the S.P.F members wore nearly identical uniforms, visually similar to those worn by their S.W.A.T counterparts outside of the city. Some members had different uniforms depending on what they did. Those who were to be mainly participating in armed raids wore full body uniforms with armour plates protecting the chest as well as elbow and knee pads. Kevin's uniform was nearly all black, with an open collar shirt, but still having the same chest protection as other officers, whereas Doug wore a navy blue outfit, with a long sleeved white undershirt with a short sleeved jacket on over the top that was navy blue with black armour plates covering his chest as well as two plates on his shoulders when he had the short sleeved jacket on. He also had elbow and knee pads, and the whole outfit looking like a jumpsuit as the jacket and trousers were exactly the same colour and fit together so closely. Both were wearing tactical gloves and had a handgun holster on their thighs for an easy draw of a handgun, as well as having the R.P.D emblem on arm patches. Doug carried a standard Beretta 92 while Kevin carried a Browning HP, as they were their preferred handguns. The R.P.D stocked both, allowing officers to choose what they felt most comfortable with.

"Look at you two in your swanky new outfits" Marvin teased them. "I'm sure this is great from your point of view now you're doing something that's not restricting your skills. You're the two best officers under my supervision, and I reckon the two officers who could have made it into S.T.A.R.S had things not turned ugly. But that's a whole other can of worms and we have more important things to look in to. Since you were away calls have been coming in thick and fast and there just aren't enough officers to go around, but I have a job for the pair of you to do if you think it's worth it. The manager of a distribution company rang up while you were away saying that stock is beginning to go missing from his warehouses and he wants a couple of officers to go over and take a look. I'm sure it's just an immigrant or two helping themselves to a couple of pieces of stock, but he's really concerned about it. Think you can go over to shut him up?" Doug and Kevin agreed, and headed down into the car park where they collected the keys to a 1998 Ford Crown Victoria police cruiser off a mechanic down there and headed up the ramp to the outside world.

The main headquarters of this distribution company was in the uptown area of the city where a lot of the industry was, such as a packing factory owned by the Umbrella Corporation where medical products were boxed up and shipped across the world and a ready meals factory that always made the area smell like a takeaway. It was a glorious early September day in Raccoon City, and the citizens were seeing blue sky for what seemed the first time in months. For the last two months all they had seen was rain, fog and gloomy overcast conditions but now things were beginning to pick up for the Colorado mountain community. Kevin pulled up in a parking bay out the front of the office section of the warehouse and the pair approached the front door where they were buzzed in by the receptionist. They explained that they were here to see the owner of the company, who was immediately contacted by phone and he was down the stairs behind them in seconds. He was a short man with a balding head but plenty of grey hair and a grey moustache, and wearing a checked shirt and beige trousers with brown shoes.

"Ah, you must be from the R.P.D" The owner greeted them, shaking hands with the two officers. "I'm glad you came along, I'd like to know where my stock is going and who is doing it." He led them through a set of brown wooden doors to their left and took them through a large open space where three office cubicles were being built to the right hand side of the room, and through another set of double doors that entered the warehouse itself. Inside were racks upon racks of clothing extending 30ft into the air, with people in high visibility jackets scurrying around getting the items of clothing ready for loading onto lorries that would take the garments around the country.

"So what is it your company does exactly Mr Smith?" Doug asked, examining an item of female swimwear that was to be loaded onto the next departing lorry.

"We have clients who represent clothing manufacturers all across the world from Hong Kong to the UK" Mr Smith explained. "We then hold onto these on behalf of JC Penny, Wal Mart and Sears, who order in stock as they need it. We dispatch to all 50 States and have some connections with Puerto Rico, the UK and Canada." He showed them around the whole bottom portion of the warehouse, explaining how they use bar code technology to scan out each individual group of items and use special identifying numbers called UPCs and URNs to group things together.

"And what is it you'd like us to investigate?" Kevin continued with the questions.

"Lately items have gone missing from the six warehouses we own and are being sold on the Saturday market down at Warren Plaza. The supervisors are usually keeping tabs on who goes in and out and conduct thorough random searches every night. But it seems with several workers and supervisors calling in sick, things are being slipped out pretty easily." A supervisor walked past, easily identifiable in his orange high visibility jacket, as opposed to the workers who wore yellow ones. He looked really tetchy, running backwards and forwards and looking as though he was neither coming nor going.

"Roy" Mr Smith said to him. "You managed to catch anyone yet? Where the hell is my stock going?"

"I wish I knew as well Steve" Roy replied, who was basically a taller version of Steve only with more hair. "But I can't do much about it because it seems everyone in my department is fucking ill or hasn't shown up for days." Roy then ran off back to his office where he was trying frantically to call in people who were having a day off to come in for a few extra dollars.

"We'll try to look into this for you Mr Smith" Doug assured him. "But the R.P.D is up to its neck in calls about missing people right now and we're having the same understaffing issues that you are currently having. Officer Ryman and I can't promise results, but if we think of a way for you to catch these thieves without police intervention, we'll get in touch with you."

"That's alright" Steve replied, disappointed slightly. "If you're understaffed at your place as well then my problems will have to wait. But if I do catch anyone thieving, I can assure you that charges will be brought." Doug gave Steve a calling card and the pair went on their way, saying goodbye to the receptionist on the way out. As they stepped outside, a cold wind blew down off the mountains, making both shiver as they climbed into the car. Checking their watches, it was just coming up to midday, so they thought it best to grab something quick to eat from a sandwich shop that was about a five minute drive from the warehouse, which was near an on ramp to the main highway through the city. For the two police officers, things were getting stranger and stranger by the day.

And unbeknownst to them and everyone else in the city, an event was to take place within the next few days that would change everybody's lives forever…


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

September 24h 1998- 1303:

More and more officers began to arrive at the station over the next few days, whether they were regular beat officers or members of the S.P.F, and immediately began roaming the streets answering calls. With the increasing crime rates and the mysterious disappearances of civilians, people began to avoid the city altogether out of fears of being kidnapped or shot. Sales of firearms in the city had gone up, great news for owners of gun shops such as Robert Kendo, the main benefactor of the 'boom stick boom' as the Raccoon media had named it. Brad Vickers still remained as an average traffic cop, unwilling to discuss the incident in the mountains and when not at work shut himself away from everybody else. Jill would periodically visit the station to remove any personal belongings and search through Wesker's things as she picked the various locks on his filing cabinets and on his desk to see what was going on, whilst still being an active R.P.D member although just not with S.T.A.R.S. By the 11th of September, she had resigned her commission, and was unemployed. As she left the precinct the day of her resignation, she saw an old gentleman and an officer playing chess together on their lunch break, the whole time the officer looking concerned as to how the older gentleman was doing health-wise. He was looking quite pale and was struggling with his concentration. Jill thought nothing of it, thinking it was just an old man who was beginning to show his age, she just went home.

Underneath the city, two days before, a pair of men in all black combat outfits consisting of black tactical jackets with long sleeves, black combat trousers and black full face gas masks creep stealthily through the Raccoon City sewers. Both of them were carrying MP5 sub machine guns, a lightweight, easy to use and reliable weapon and were heading towards their target. They walked along a metal walkway that ran either side of the round sewer tunnel, with the sewer water below them. Rats scurried around the area, squeaking and ducking around the two men to avoid being stepped on. The team leader looked one way and then the other, before signalling to his team mate.

"This way" he instructed, and led on with his subordinate providing cover.

Inside a laboratory hidden underneath the city, a man begins loading sealed test tubes into a reinforced metal briefcase. Highly sophisticated, expensive and complicated lab equipment was placed in various locations throughout the room, all of which was used in this scientist's research.

"It's sheer perfection" the scientist said to himself with a satisfied smirk on his face, and the look of pride in his blue eyes. "My precious G-Virus: No one will take you away from me." He loaded the last of the test tubes, filled with a purple liquid into the briefcase and closed it, before putting his lab jacked on over his white suit shirt with red tie that was loosely worn around his neck and began to leave. As the briefcase was picked up, the automatic door rose like a shutter with a mechanical whoosh and the two commandos appeared. The scientist didn't seem too phased by their arrival, as if he knew that one day, this was bound to happen.

"So you've finally come" He said to them, pointing a loaded pistol at them, alternating his target.

"Dr Birkin, we're here for the sample of the G-Virus" the leader told him, his voice cold, formal and deep, muffled by the gas mask covering his face. William Birkin, the scientist they had come to find, began to back away with the briefcase.

"I'm sorry" He said casually, "But I'm not just going to hand over my life's work." He backed away towards another door, but in his hasty retreat he knocked an empty glass jar off the table, irking one of the commandos, within a split second the commando's MP5 began unloading rounds into the scientist, the rounds that hit peppering him with bullets and those that missed smashing a cabinet used for keeping cultures warm and analysing things under ultra-violet light. As quick as he could react, the leader put his hand up to signal for his partner to stop.

"Stop it! You might hit the sample!" He exclaimed. Birkin fell to the floor, groaning in pain and it being a miracle that he was still breathing after being hit about seven times with automatic weapon fire. The commando leader checked the fallen briefcase, containing the G-Virus in a purple solution and the T-Virus in a green solution. He closed the briefcase and nodded at his partner.

"This is what we came for, let's go." The other commando nodded and they began to leave, while William was on the floor, losing a lot of blood.

"William!" his wife Annette called out after she had run into the lab upon hearing the commotion. She looked at the bullet wounds on William and was confused as to what to do. "I'm going to go and get something to treat those wounds with; Just stay with me darling!" She got up and ran off to find something to patch her husband up with. William groaned as he looked down into his left hand and noticed he was clutching onto a lone vial of the G-Virus. A syringe had fallen onto the floor and thinking that this was the only way to save his life, he loaded the purple solution into the syringe and injected it into his left arm. He felt a slight pain in his stomach and a kick go through his body like a caffeine fix and in moments, began to feel a lot better as the damaged parts of his body began to regenerate and the wounds begin to heal.

"This is Alpha Team, this is Alpha Team" the commando leader said into his radio, "we have retrieved the sample, over." There was a brief pause.

"Roger Alpha Team, head to the rendezvous point for extraction" was the response from two other commandos waiting a little further along the sewer tunnel. These commandos moved up to a metal door that led up to a sewage disposal facility close to the police station to wait for their fellow soldiers. Every single member of this strike team was wearing the same all black uniform with the gas mask, making them appear dark and mysterious. They were waiting patiently for their friends to show up when they heard automatic rifle fire coming from further up the tunnel.

"What was that?" one commando said to the other.

"I don't know, but we should check it out. It's coming from over there!" They left their position and sprinted as fast as possible to where the sound was coming from.

"Shit! What is that thing?" one of the two commandos who raided Dr Birkin's lab exclaimed as he reloaded his gun. "Eat this you freak!" He began shooting again, but the monster, about eight feet in height and sporting a huge claw on his right hand, dressed in the tattered remains of William Birkin's clothes, swung at one of the commandos, knocking him unconscious and causing him to drop the briefcase which cracked open and dropped the vials of T and G viral strains all over the floor. Roaring as bullets hit him and making negligible damage upon him, Birkin impaled the other soldier on his claw and threw him back across towards a tunnel intersection where he hit the wall just as the other two commandos who had found two more comrades reached the source of the screams. Before them they saw what William Birkin had become as a result of him inflicting this mutation upon his own body: The right arm had not only sprouted the massive claw, but a huge eyeball-like tumour had appeared and a large piece of bone was extending past the shoulder area. The skin of his face had begun to rot away due to the cells evolving at an accelerated rate while his left arm and his legs appeared to be as normal with his torso having increased its muscle mass by about 200%. Birkin noticed the fallen vials of the G-Virus and open them to drink the purple liquid contained inside them to make him stronger and seek revenge on the people that had come to claim his work. The four surviving commandos began to run but William was just too fast for them, with one of them tripping over. The others all left him behind as he crawled backwards aiming his MP5 at Birkin trying to stop him. William slowly approached, again not appearing to take any damage and thrust his claw downward like a pile-driver into the abdomen of the commando, killing him and sending the MP5 flying through the air and it hit the ground hard, jamming the firing mechanism on and expending all the remaining rounds as if the commando was firing it normally.

Within five minutes, the sewers went silent. The only sounds being the drips of the water landing in the main sewage flow and the rats squeaking as they ran about the area, and all meeting near the broken T-Virus test tubes where they began to lap up the green liquid. All six members of the black ops team sent by Umbrella to take the G-Virus from William Birkin were dead, and as one member lay dead in a pool of his own blood, the rats that had drunk the spilt T-Virus began to tear his flesh from his body in a feeding frenzy. The event was an unknown occurrence to the people of the city, but they would certainly be feeling the fallout from this.

Two days after William Birkin's assassination, Doug was sent to the home of a reporter who had been printing stories in the Raccoon Times and causing more panic and unrest amongst the population than what was already deemed acceptable. Doug's car approached the house and he parked up in front of the driveway, blocking the journalist in as he tried to leave for work. The journalist frantically bashed his horn and hung his head out the window, shouting obscenities at Doug as he approached the car.

"Hey, what the hell are you doing?" the reporter asked, dressed in a white and black pinstripe shirt with a red tie and beige trousers. His auburn hair was tied back in a ponytail and he looked like wherever he needed to go, he had to be there in a hurry.

"Are you Ben Burtolucci?" Doug asked, resting his right arm on the roof of the car and putting his left hand on his gun and standing so that Ben had to look slightly behind him to talk to him. It was a standard operation procedure when making a stop, so that the officer at the scene can easily look at the driver, passenger and anyone in the back seats to check for any funny business.

"Yeah, I am." Ben replied. "What do you want?" Doug informed him that he was under arrest on suspicion of acts of criminal libel and opened the car door while requesting that Ben get out. Reluctantly, Ben got up and placed his hands on the bonnet of the car so he could be patted down for any weapons. Tucked into Ben's sock was a Glock 17 handgun that was immediately confiscated and Ben was then charged with possession of a deadly weapon. On the drive back to the police station, Doug asked why on earth Ben would carry something like that.

"Have you not been reading the papers lately?" he asked, to which Dough replied no. He didn't care much for the made up stories newspapers print. "Ever since the S.T.A.R.S got back from the mountains things have been turning weird by the day. As a cop, you must have noticed something, right? It's for protection, nothing more; I wasn't actually going to kill anyone with it. But you'll be running to me when whatever killed Captain Wesker in the mountains appears in the city and you'll have no idea on how to defend yourselves. Take it from me officer, this city is on the brink of destruction, the R.P.D needs to prepare for the worst case scenario!"

"Ok then Mr Burtolucci" Doug laughed. "I'll talk to the Chief when we've got you in your cell." Ben leaned closer to the metal mesh between the front and rear seats to talk to Doug privately, even though it was blatantly obvious no one else was in the car besides them.

"You think Irons is going to listen?" He said. "The guy has been taking bribes from Umbrella to keep S.T.A.R.S and the R.P.D out of anything to do with the murders in the Arklay Mountains." Doug's eyes widened. How did Ben know about Umbrella's connection to the Arklay Mountain incident? Even more than that, Irons being paid by Umbrella could be the only way that he was able to bring those god-awful pieces of art in to hang in the police station. Maybe it was because of the bribes that Irons wasn't willing to entertain Jill and the others on what they claimed to have seen in the mansion. Five minutes later, they arrived at the police station and Doug navigated the cruiser into the underground car park. Once parked in the bay, he got out and walked around to the back to allow Ben out and escorted him to the cells, placing him in the one furthest from the door.

"You'll be held here for further questioning, but I can't offer you a specific timetable due to the majority of the officers being preoccupied at the minute. Could be a couple of hours, yet it could be a couple of days. So make yourself as comfortable as possible." He turned to leave, stopping at the next cell along where two men were being kept.

"Oh come on Eric!" He sighed when he realised who was on the other side of the bars. "What are you and Keith in for this time?"

"We got busted trying to buy a gun from Kendo's place when we've had previous convictions. Dunno why they're keeping us in here instead of upstairs but with everything that's going down on those streets this is the best place to be." Doug knew those two well. He, Richard, Eric and Keith grew up in Raccoon City. They went to the same school, they went to the same youth clubs and while Richard and Doug got good grades all through junior and senior high, Eric was very much the Chris Redfield of their school, spending more time in the principal's office with Keith than in class. Doug and Richard went to college after school before they joined the R.P.D with Richard getting a bachelor's degree in electrical and computer engineering, a qualification he put to good use by operating most of the radio equipment in the precinct, while Doug studied History. Joining the R.P.D was probably a good choice for Doug. He was respected in his team and did his job with a professional and courteous approach to every civilian he met, but was by no means not afraid to get his hands dirty if the situation called for it, although he never answered the question as to why someone with a BA in history was working for the police.

September 24th was the day that the worry amongst the civilians in the city had reached fever pitch. The hospital had now become full of patients experiencing flu-like symptoms, a rare occurrence being that it was three months early. The morgue however was the most worrying sign. Both the morgue in the police station AND the hospital were now overflowing with the deceased, and more and more people began missing work. For the police department, this was bad news as it was becoming far too much to handle, and with some officers away being trained for S.P.F work, there seriously wasn't enough officers to answer any calls, with crime rates doubling in the space of a few hours. Doug headed for the car park where two other officers- David Ford and Elliot Edward, were chatting. He joined them by Elliot's squad car as they were discussing what had been going on.

"Did a patrol round the residential areas in the south of the city" Elliot explained. "They're completely deserted, there's nobody around. Everybody is either coming here or heading into the centre of the city and no-one's quite sure as to what's going on. A group of officers walked by carrying weapons and ammunition in large plastic boxes and began taking them towards the kennels or placing them in the back of one of the old S.T.A.R.S vans.

"What the hell's going on? Is there no room left in storage or something?" Doug asked, confused.

"Chief's ordered that all the weapons and ammo be moved around the station." David explained to him. "No idea why, but no one's seen the dickhead for days. He's been shut in his office tight and people have been saying he's been screaming at people down his phone when they've been taking him coffee and lunch." When the subject of the Chief was brought up, Doug's facial expression changed, as if he was hiding something.

"Are you alright?" Elliot asked him.

"Yeah" Doug replied, "It's just that what people have been saying about him acting suspicious around here is pretty much what the press have been saying too. I'm just thinking… Maybe it ain't all media bullshit…" They were distracted from their conversation by a mechanic calling out to someone. The mechanic was dressed in his blue jumpsuit with 'R.P.D Mechanic' in white letters on the back and a blue baseball cap on his head. His hands were grubby and in his right hand held a towel that he used to clean himself up with.

"Hey" He said to a man in tattered clothes lying on the ground near the door. When Doug saw the man on the ground, he couldn't believe he had missed him. "You can't sleep here, head for the homeless shelter on Shrewsbury Avenue." There was no response. "Sir, you can't sleep here." He turned to the three officers who were at the back wall. "These damn homeless guys" he sighed before towel whipping the homeless man. "SIR, YOU HAVE TO MOVE!" With that, the man on the ground started to move and slowly picked himself up to his feet with a groan and looked directly at the mechanic. His eyes were glazed over and his skin was beginning to hang off his bones, with a handful of maggots that had been feasting on his flesh falling out of his mouth. The mechanic called out to Doug, Elliot and David whilst backing away as the strange man started to edge closer to him. Doug and Elliot were over in seconds while David ran upstairs to report to Marvin. The homeless man lunged at the mechanic and grabbed him by the shoulders, but the mechanic did the same in an attempt to throw him off. Doug and Elliot had their guns drawn and were pointing them at the homeless man.

"Let go of him or we shoot!" Elliot ordered him. The man continued to struggle with the mechanic and appeared to make an attempt at biting the helpless grease monkey, so Elliot fired a shot at the homeless man's knee, causing him to fall to the floor. Without showing any pain whatsoever, the homeless man was back on his feet and this time headed for Elliot. In Doug's head was a flashback to when Jill showed him the video of Kenneth being eaten alive in the mansion and instantly knew what this thing was.

"Those things Chris and the others told us about" Doug said to Elliot. "They're real." Doug pointed his gun at the crazy man and fired a single shot that ripped through the man's skull and he fell to the floor, this time not getting up.

"What the hell is up with that?" Elliot asked him. "That was a clean hit; he should have fallen to the floor and rolled around in pain."

"That's because he's not human" Doug explained to him, telling him it was a zombie like what Chris, Jill, Richard, Barry and Rebecca had encountered in the mountains. Whatever caused the outbreak in the mansion was now in the city.

Raccoon City was now on the brink of collapse…

_ "It all started as an ordinary day in September in Raccoon City, a city controlled by Umbrella. No one dared to oppose them, and that lack of strength would ultimately lead to their destruction. I suppose they had to suffer for the consequences of their actions, but there would be no forgiveness. If only they had the courage to fight._

_ I guess it's true that once the wheels of justice begin to turn nothing can stop them- Nothing._

_ This would be Raccoon City's last chance. This would be my last escape."_

The immortal words written in Jill Valentine's diary expressed her concern, anger and fear as to what was happening outside of her apartment window as she began to prepare for the worst case scenario.

Doug and Elliot headed out on to Ennerdale Street to see ambulances and police cars screaming past with lights and sirens blaring and the streets deserted. Shops were closed and those that were open appeared to have no one inside. They decided to take a police car and cruise the city looking for clues. Doug jumped in the driver's seat while Elliot put on his jacket and climbed in after him, placing his policeman's hat on his lap. Just to be sure, Doug put the lights on and they took a drive around Raccoon City. The city was just completely deserted, just police officers wandering around just as confused as Doug and Elliot were. As they drove up Fox Street, they saw someone they recognised in woodland camouflage trousers and a white t-shirt with a yellow bullet resistant vest over the top.

"Brad!" Elliot called out from the car as they rolled at walking pace alongside him. "What the hell is going on? The city is deserted!" Brad just shrugged his shoulders and walked away. He knew, but didn't want to have any part of it. They cruised around the city for another hour, finding all residential areas void of anybody. Cars were left on their drives or at the side of the road. They stepped out of the car briefly, hearing nothing but the wind. An eerie silence was all that was there, and to Doug and Elliot, they felt like they were the only people around for miles. They climbed back into the car and drove around a little more until they reached a small park that was normally filled with children, and was also where Doug and Richard played when they were younger. It was empty. No one in sight, and the swings moved in the breeze, creaking as it had been a while since the city council had given the place a maintenance check. They drew their guns and vaulted the low wall that separated the younger children's play area from the area more commonly used by older children and headed for the soccer pitch that was in the exact middle of the playing fields. It was quiet, much too quiet for their liking. They stood back to back, guns in hand, scanning the immediate area. After a moment, they heard shuffling coming from in the trees and out from under a bush crawled a woman in a tattered and dirty white blouse and a torn navy blue skirt, with a high heel missing from one of her feet. Elliot and Doug knew to keep their distance and only attempt to help her when it was known to them that she was still human. Slowly, the woman picked herself up to her feet and when she saw the two officers she raised her hands.

"Please!" She pleaded with them. "Don't shoot me!" She had messy blonde hair that had twigs and leaves in it that she immediately brushed out. Elliot cautiously got close and checked her over for bite marks, as he believed that the 'zombie disease' was spread the same way is it was in stories, movies and folklore: Being bitten.

"She's clean." He confirmed. Three more zombies closed in on their position, so it seemed that the best plan was to get out of there and get back to the police station where they could at least get the young woman to safety.

"What the hell are those things?" She asked from the back of the police interceptor as Doug raced through the streets of Raccoon City with everything going: Lights, two tones and pushing the supercharged V8 of the Ford Crown Victoria to its limits. He would have loved to rev the engine high before changing gear in the lower gears for a bit of extra boost from the supercharger, but as this was an automatic like all of the Ford police interceptors, that wasn't going to happen. Doug was a skilled driver, he was what was known as a 'Level 1 Traffic Officer' that was highly trained in pursuit driving and had lightning fast reflexes, a rare gift. He did a power slide round the corner at a set of traffic lights up towards the police station, where he drove down into the car park and came to a stop in a bay. The majority of the police cars were still down here and the reason why would become apparent to them as they headed up to the main hall. Elliot took the woman to safety while Doug said he was going to head up to the East Offices where his desk was so he could find out what he should do from Marvin. He ran to the door opposite the cells, pushing his way past officers and turned left to find the stairs that came to their peak outside the night watchman's room and sprinted down the corridor to the offices. In there the officers scurried around with confusion, as the search was beginning for the weapon caches that had been moved around earlier in the day, as under mysterious circumstances, the officers that had moved them had disappeared as soon as the move was finished.

That night, Kevin thought it would be best to unwind after a totally confusing day, and had not heard about Doug and Elliot's encounters with the undead so he headed for his favourite haunt: J's Bar, located on Jack Street about five hundred yards from the police station. It was rustic in appearance, furnished like the taverns of old with a touch of Irish flavour. Bottles and glasses were kept behind the bar as well as hanging over it, with barrels being used as tables alongside the large window that looked out onto the street and the lights providing a warm homey glow. Kevin had been going to J's since he turned twenty one, and in the last few years he had been trying unsuccessfully to flirt with the young waitress Cindy who would go about her work in a blue and white striped shirt with a blue low-cut vest and a medium length black skirt with black high-heels. She kept her well conditioned hair tight back in a ponytail for work and was by far the most popular waitress there, not just for her looks, but for her cheery character that always put a smile on the patrons' faces. Kevin sat at the bar with a glass of Coke in front of him, chatting with fellow customers who seemed to be there for the same reasons. The strange thing being, that everybody was dressed in their work clothes, as if they didn't care if they were seen and later accused of drinking on the job. Aside from Kevin who stood out like a sore thumb in his S.P.F uniform, there were other characters in there: To his left were two large gentlemen, one with dark skin, a bald head and beard while the other was shorter with a head of grey hair and a moustache, the latter appearing to look drunk as he spent quite a lot of time with his head on the bar and not drinking or eating his bar meal.

"Are you eating anything?" The dark skinned one asked his friend. "Hey, Bob: Where's your mind at?" To Kevin's right was a man in grubby beige jumpsuit and appeared to be a labourer or a plumber or something as he carried a lot of tools around on a belt. He was by far the quietest of the bunch, and was also a regular who didn't say much or speak about the day he had. His hair was long and dark and like Cindy's, was tied in a ponytail. Behind him at a table, a woman in red suit trousers and a red suit jacket with a black low cut shirt and short blonde hair sat tapping away at a laptop, while at the next table along a man in a white and yellow plaid shirt with a burgundy-coloured vest, charcoal-coloured dinner jacket, grey suit trousers and brown dress shoes was sipping on a glass of whiskey and looking pretty down. On a TV in the corner, placed up high on a bracket, the evening news was being broadcast.

"There was disruption at today's football game between the Raccoon City Sharks and the Aspen Mountain Wolves when an unruly fan got out of control and sparked a riot. Fifty law enforcement officers were called to the scene where the fan was eventually calmed down. Kevin looked up at the television and just laughed and continued drinking, trying to spark up a conversation with the plumber next to him, who appeared to be in a world of his own. After another unsuccessful attempt at humouring the man, Kevin and the others turned around as the door was pushed open and in the doorway stood a man with parted brown hair. His head was hung low and his arms were limp by his side. One of the waiters put an empty glass onto a tray and looked at the gentleman who took two steps inside the bar and again stood still.

"What a strange customer" he thought to himself. The big black security guard stayed on his stool and looked across at the man, who was believed to be drunk out of his mind...

"Who is this guy?" He said aloud. The waiter stood opposite the strange man who was perfectly still. Kevin's handgun was put on top of the bar, within easy reach. Drunk and disorderly behaviour was not uncommon in Raccoon City at night, and this could either end peacefully with a few laughs from both parties, or end up in a fight. The woman's laptop was closed and the man in the suit stood up to take a look. The people in the bar just stared at this man, waiting to see what would happen. Without any sign of warning, the man lunged at the waiter and started to bite into his throat. Kevin picked his handgun up off the bar and raised it, ordering the customer to back off. Eventually, the waiter was able to push the man back towards the door and shut him out, locking it when he was safely out. He then collapsed to the floor and the man in the suit jumped in to check.

"I'm a surgeon at the Raccoon City Hospital" he explained, and Cindy brought over a bar towel to try and subdue the bleeding. It was no use- The waiter's breaths became more and more drawn out until his last gasps for air were very much futile. He stopped breathing and the surgeon laid him down on the hard wooden floor as the waiter died with his eyes open in a pool of his own blood. Cindy was shocked and heartbroken to see that the waiter, whose name turned out to be Will, was dead. There was a scream as the woman in the red suit jumped away from the window, as several more characters similar to the one that attacked Will were congregating at the window, banging on it in an attempt to get in. The older security guard fell off his stool with a groan.

"Bob!" The dark man exclaimed, picking his friend to his feet. The surgeon picked Bob up as Cindy grabbed a key and unlocked a door behind the bar. The woman in red, the surgeon, Cindy and Bob ran through this door, shutting it behind them while the security guard, Kevin and the plumber remained behind.

"By the way, I'm Kevin. Nice to meet you boys" He said casually with his gun pointed towards the door.

"I'm Mark" the security guard replied, also having his gun pointed towards the door. The plumber pushed one of the big heavy barrels that were used as a table in front of the door to try and hold the strange people back.

"David" he said coldly, not even giving Mark or Kevin a look. Coincidentally, David had been doing work at this bar that day, and an iron pipe long enough to be used as an effective weapon was lying behind the bar. He picked it up and held it like a baseball bat. None of them dared to engage as they didn't want to waste ammo or get killed, so they waited for their new friends outside to make the first move. Eventually, the mass outside caused one of the windows to cave in, and that made them realise it was time to move. David opened the door the other patrons had gone through and he and Mark went through while Kevin acted as a rear guard before following them through and shutting and locking the door behind him. A set of stairs was directly in front of them, and they sprinted up them to find themselves in a staff lounge where the others were already waiting for them and they were glad they were safe. Cindy found another key and she quickly unlocked a door at the back of the staff room that had a sofa, a water cooler and an attached kitchen, with a small coffee table near the sofa, as well as changing into her trainers as high heels were not suitable wear for this sort of situation. She waved them through and at the top of the stairs they saw that they were in the liquor storage room that was in what was effectively the attic. Barrels of whiskey were along the walls and crates of bottled beer and alco-pops were on shelves above them. Kevin grabbed David's iron pipe off him and used it to smash the taps off the barrelled whiskey, causing the whiskey to flow all over the floor. David grabbed a crate of Budweiser off the shelf and following Kevin's lead, ripped open the cardboard box and threw them on the floor to cause it to spill as there were no bottle openers in sight. Cindy yelled at them to stop.

"They're zombies Cindy" Kevin explained. "They're after us and this is the only way we'll stop them." Alyssa, the woman in red, also began to smash bottles to cause them to spill all over the floor, as did Mark. When they heard the undead bashing on the locked door they had come through. They ran for the roof where they would be able to jump across into the apartment building next door and make their way out onto the street. They all ran except for David who waited for them to burst through the door and used his lighter that he would use to heat up pipes to make them expand so they'd fit together better for welding and lit the spilled alcohol. The spirits caught fire instantly and spread through the room, engulfing any undead that walked into it. As he saw this was burning more ferociously than they had thought, he headed for the roof too. When he got there he saw Bob on the floor while Mark was stood over him.

"I'm no different from them" Bob sighed. "I can feel the hunger."

"What are you saying?" Mark asked.

"I'm just going to slow you down. I'm no good to anyone. Please, allow me to die while my conscience remains" Bob raised his handgun to his head but Mark was able to pin it down while begging Bob to stop.

"Mark, you don't understand." Bob continued. "Would you rather have me do this myself or just wait it out so you have to do this for me? I'll be one of them soon. I don't want you do die in the same way". Mark looked down at the handgun in Bob's hand before looking at his friend, who was looking very pale and sick. Slowly, Mark moved his hands away, not being able to bear the thought of shooting his best friend. Bob then raised the gun to his head and pulled the trigger, sending blood all over the roof. Mark hung his head, not wanting to show any emotions just now. He wanted to get out of here and only once he was out would he worry about what he had lost. He took the handgun and handed it to David, who discarded his iron pipe.

Kevin led them towards the edge of the building, where there was a six foot gap to the apartment building on the other side. It was easy enough to make, even for Mark and Cindy. The inferno downstairs was reaching fever pitch and since they had not been followed this far, it was safely assumed that the zombies were busy being cremated in there.

"We're gonna have to jump" Kevin explained. "There's no way we can go back the way we came." He took a running jump and safely made it to the other side, and had everybody follow him. Cindy went first and jumped across, stumbling as she landed but was quickly caught by Kevin. Mark followed next and safely made it across. George Hamilton the surgeon came across next and like the others was safe. Alyssa's turn was next, but as she was about to jump, she slipped and landed just short of the edge of the other roof. She clung onto the edge for dear life while Mark and Kevin slowly pulled her up. Once she was up, she was shaking and panting from the panic, but glad she had escaped death… For now at least… Once everybody was safely across, David made the jump.

"Attention citizens of Raccoon City" A voice from street level announced through a PA system. "Due to the riots in progress, this area will be closed off soon." There were screams of panic as people rushed past the police barricade with the odd gunshot ringing out in the distance. "We need everybody in this area to meet with officers on the street so we can get you out of harm's way. If you do not follow this advice, there is no way we can guarantee your safety."

"That's our cue" Kevin told the group, and led them down several flights of fire escape stairs at the side of the building that led down into the small alley they had just jumped and down onto the street. More and more people streamed past the police barricade while other officers took shots at the oncoming zombie mass. Two were taken down and eaten while the others moved back. As the survivors of the bar came out of the alley, the officer there turned and pointed his gun.

"Shit, you startled me!" It was Doug. "I'm glad you're still here, Kevin. This whole city has been turned into a war zone. Marvin's ordered any off duty officers to assist in the evacuation of the civilians. Get your friends to that intersection down there, Matt and Paul will have a van waiting. I'll hold these guys off, you just get out of here!" He reloaded his gun and fired several shots at the oncoming zombies, who were being held back behind a barricade of patrol cars, although some were crawling over the bonnets or actually going under the cars. With Doug's guidance, they were quickly taken down. Kevin ran with the others to the van where they were safely loaded up and driven away out of the city. Kevin then ran back towards Doug so that he could assist. It was no good, the barricade had been compromised and the zombies slowly began to make their way towards them.

"We'd better get out of here" Doug warned with a sense of urgency. Kevin didn't need to be told twice and literally jumped into the car via the open window. With Doug's exceptional driving skills, they were able to reverse at speed towards the intersection and with a precise J-Turn they sped up towards the edge of town where a mobile phone call had been made regarding people trapped at one of Mr Smith's warehouses. At this moment in time nobody could work out who was human and who wasn't. So anybody was treated as hostile, and an emergency broadcast message had been sent by Mayor Warren placing the city under martial law. Civilians panicked and were running anywhere they could, with many choosing to lock themselves in their houses or places of business to be picked up by a passing police transport. Because of crashed cars and bodies on the street, it took much longer than expected to get there and once they reached the warehouse, it was discovered that this area of town was deserted. It seemed safe, but they couldn't be too careful. Doug took the shotgun from the boot of the patrol car and he and Kevin cautiously approached the dispatch office that was a small brick building attached to the back of the warehouse and looked to be their only way in. The warehouse was the largest of the six owned by Mr Smith's company Smiths Gore, a partnership Mr Smith and an ex-Navy officer set up in the 80s. The warehouse was up until recently owned by Ikea, who moved into a larger distribution centre in Denver. The door was locked, and they immediately searched for a way in. A window was the obvious answer and a stack of pallets was located next to this brick building. Kevin picked up one in his hands that was leaning up against this pile and threw it at the window, causing the whole window to smash with the pallet going straight through. Doug went in through first, slightly catching and tearing a tiny part of his trousers on a shard of glass that didn't get dislodged from the window sealant, and when he landed there was the sound of wood making contact with glass as he landed on the pallet, with Kevin following suit.

They were in the drivers' area of the office, a small reception area where drivers checked in to find out where stock was going and how much of it they were taking. A counter was in front of them with a grey wooden door visible at the back which the two officers assumed led into the warehouse. Kevin climbed over the counter to see that this room was bigger than they thought: It stretched out to the right where there was a small kitchen and a computer with lots of filing cabinets nearby. To the left was a board room where supervisor meetings must have taken place. Aside from the mess Kevin made to gain entry, there appeared to be no sign of chaos taking place: No blood, no gore and no violence. The only thing lingering in the air was the smell of coffee and toast, as the toaster in the little kitchen had been put to good use. Luckily the door to the warehouse was open and gingerly it was pushed open. The warehouse was much bigger than the one they had visited before. The racks were higher and there were a lot more of them. A cherry picker had been parked neatly against the wall while a forklift with its driver still inside had crashed into the racking, causing one to fall over onto another all the way to the end in a domino effect. Doug drew a torch from one of his trouser pockets and clipped it to the shotgun. The lights were on, but the warehouse was eerily dark, and they were going to need all the light they can get to avoid danger. They headed in between two racks that were still standing and made their way to the back of the warehouse where they discovered a shutter blocking a doorway with another door to some toilets next to it. Doug raised the shutter and used his radio to contact anybody that was not involved in the evacuation effort.

"Romeo Two Six, request backup at 1671 Brookmere Road, over."

"Affirmative Romeo Two Six, please state why you need the backup, over."

"I'm at a warehouse in the north of the city. I can hear movement upstairs, possible civilians. I am now heading up to confirm suspicions, over."

"Roger Romeo Two Six, backup will be en route when situation is confirmed and under control- HQ out"

Doug and Kevin stepped through the now open door and saw a door to the toilet to their right and a staircase immediately to the left. The noises upstairs were slightly louder now they had opened the shutter and opened the door. Kevin went up the stairs first, treading quietly as not to irk whoever was up there. At the top of the stairs there was another door that was slightly ajar. It was opened with great care and Kevin went through first and checked the kitchen door that was directly opposite while Doug went to the left. Ahead was a large open rectangular room with people sitting on the floor, talking and looking scared. Doug alerted Kevin and they quickly headed for the group, with Doug radioing HQ as he ran. The R.P.D's dispatch offices were not in the city, but located in the town of Applewood, close to where Doug, Kevin and their new friend Leon had been training.

"This is Romeo Two Six I have secured seven civilians. Request a van sent to 1671 Brookmere Road, over."

"Roger Romeo Two Six, Romeo Two Zero is en route. Keep them calm, check for injuries and…" All that came through the radio after that was static. Doug threw the radio to one side, now useless.

"Are you guys alright?" Kevin asked the group while Doug looked out the window to wait for the transport.

"We're all okay" A gentleman in a suit explained, but Sally here is eight months pregnant and she needs to get out of here as soon as possible." Sally was lying on her back with several coats used to prop her head up and looked to be in some discomfort.

"We have a transport coming to get you out of the city" Kevin explained. "We're really close to the highway too, so once it's here, you'll be out in no time." Doug ran back downstairs to wait for the van to show, with the civilians panicking further when they heard a shotgun blast from downstairs, with Doug sprinting back up soon after.

The transport eventually arrived, and the civilians were quickly led downstairs out into the loading area where they were helped aboard.

"What the hell happened to the radio?" Doug asked the officer driving the van.

"No idea man" The driver replied. "There's complete comm. blackout, we're getting nothing from HQ and stuff coming into the precinct is laced with so much static we can't hear what the hell is going on. What shall we do once these guys are out?"

"Take them straight to Stoneville, make sure the pregnant woman is alright" Doug ordered. "Don't even think about coming back." The driver nodded and sped away while Doug and Kevin jumped back into their car and sped back to the centre of town.

They came to an unexpected stop close to Main Street, where the Raccoon City Mall and various other large shops were located. The roads were barricaded with police cars and there was nowhere for them to go by car, so they'd have to go by foot. Kevin and Doug swiftly got out of the car and looked around. A little further up Main Street was a pair of police officers at a crudely erected barricade taking pot shots at the undead advancing towards them, while another officer fiddled with something on the ground.

"Doug!" Kevin called out to Doug, who was trying to push one of the parked police cars out of the way so that he could drive back to the police station. "I'm gonna go and help those guys over there then I'll meet you at the station!"

"Okay Kevin" Doug called back, managing to get one of the cars moving. "Take care of yourself."

It would be four years before they saw each other again...


	4. Chapter 4

September 24th 1998- 2230:

By the time Doug finally got back to the police station it was late into the evening, and the police station was the most packed he had ever seen. Officers were running around, not knowing whether they were coming or going, shouting at each other things like "where are the rifles?" and "Anybody got a spare gun I can borrow?" The locations where the firearms and ammunition should be were empty, as a result of the guns and ammunition being scattered around the station. Marvin jumped up onto the desk in the middle of the station's main hall and whistled loudly.

"Attention everyone!" He yelled, his voice echoing throughout the main hall. "Grab what gear you can- We're going to rescue the civilians!" There was a large rush, and in no time at all, the main hall was empty, save for the Select Police Force members who stayed behind to secure the weapons caches, with Doug being one of those members.

September 26th- 0745:

Doug had sheltered himself along with two civilians in the clock tower of the police station, an area that the undead populace of the city would find hard to access due to the ladder that had to be climbed to get up there. Inside the clock tower was a cache of weapons and ammunition, amongst which was a shotgun that Doug was clutching in his left hand, his index finger on the trigger. The two civilians, a male in his late thirties and a woman in her early twenties, had been given handguns in order to defend themselves. They had heard a lot of commotion from downstairs, the zombies had broken through the defences and attacked the remaining officers in the police station. Doug had been up in the clock tower for two days, not moving from the spot he was in. They were running out of food and they had to move. When the noise had died down, Scott ordered the two civilians to follow him. Quietly, they made their way down into the library via the stair case where all was quiet. From the library, they entered the main hall. From the balcony overlooking the main hall, they saw that the room that was full of police officers two days before was completely void of life. Ordering the two survivors to follow him, Doug headed round to the other side of the room and into the same secretary's office as he had been when she told him about the Chief going mental at her for moving one of this statues. They headed through to the other side and took a right, where they found themselves in a dark corridor that was used to access the rooftop helipad where the S.T.A.R.S team had landed when they returned from the mansion. They used an emergency stairwell to head down into the east offices, where they discovered the offices tidy and appeared to be unaffected by the attack that had been ravaging for the last hour and a half. Doug then led the survivors down into the garage and towards the cells, where sure enough, Eric and Keith were still in their cell. Doug grabbed a key off the wall and unlocked the cell.

"You two: Out. Now." Without any hesitation, Eric and Keith were on their feet and out of the cell. Doug then moved towards the one at the end, where Ben was sleeping.

"Ben! Get up now!" Doug shouted, rattling the cell bars. Ben rolled over and lifted his head up to see Doug and the others staring at him. "Ben, we're getting you out of here. Come on!" Ben put his head back down on the bed.

"Not a chance" he laughed. "I'm not going anywhere, and you can't make me." Doug wasn't really in the mood for games, so he pushed the key through the bars, letting them hit the concrete floor with a metallic rattle. In addition to this, he also put the key to his patrol car in.

"Fine then. If you change your mind, the keys to car fifty one are in there too." He then turned to Keith and handed him a key.

"The keys to your Lincoln" He told them. "Get out of here as soon as you can." Keith took his key and the survivors made a break for it. Doug did not go with them though, as a police officer he felt it was still his duty to protect the citizens of Raccoon City even though things were looking grim. He knew that Marvin and many others were still in the station. Mere moments after Keith and the others had left, a swarm of Select Police Force members entered the garage in full body armour, as well as the majority of the remaining officers. One of the S.P.F officers was carrying an extra helmet and MP5 sub machine gun, and he gave them to Doug.

"We're going for one last stand against them" the officer told him from behind his balaclava. "Grab some gear, because this is going to get messy."

Doug knew where some heavy weaponry would be kept, so he ran back to the library as a short cut to the S.T.A.R.S office, knowing some ammunition would be in there, since nobody except the S.T.A.R.S members ever went in there. Noticing that the emergency ladder in the main hall was in the down position, he scrambled up it and quickly ran through the door to the library. Inside was another officer: Ed, from homicide. He was about ten years older than Doug, into his thirties, but he was still young at heart. He was dressed in his plain clothes, standard for detectives. Normally Ed was a cool, calm and collected individual, but on this occasion, he had a look of panic upon his face.

"Doug, get out of here now! The..." There was a gun shot that went through Ed's back and exited through his heart. Ed fell to his knees and fell over to one side, facing up at the ceiling. Behind Ed at the other door into the library, Chief Irons stood holding a handgun.

"Not a single one of you will live past nightfall" He said coldly, pointing the gun at Doug, who dropped his and stood with his hands in the air. "Those idiots from Umbrella have destroyed my city, and for that, no one will escape alive. If you're thinking of going out through the lower levels, don't bother. I've made sure every escape route from the city is unreachable." The Chief lowered his gun and gave Doug a sly smile. "Tell you what, I'm going to count to ten real slow, and give you a head start on getting away. I've heard a lot about you, so you'll be the most fun to track down." Doug held his breath and waited for the Chief to change his mind, knowing that what was going on only happened in movies, but instead Irons turned to leave. As Irons ran to the door, Doug grabbed his handgun and fired three shots at the fleeing Chief of Police. All three missed and embedded into the door. Doug got down on one knee to check on Ed, but it was no use- He was gone. Doug now knew that Ben was right about the Chief having dealings with Umbrella, and he had to be stopped. But right now, a bigger task was at hand- Making a final stand against the undead.

September 26th 1998- 1945:

"Alright everybody, listen up!" An officer's voice boomed as he stood on the bonnet of a patrol car. All the available officers, Doug amongst them, sat on the floor with weapons in hand. Doug was still in the same style of uniform that he had been wearing the night he had to break into that warehouse to rescue the civilians. He looked around at the rest of the officers, some of whom he had never spoken to before, but at this point in time they felt like they all knew each other like brothers, and these officers were also the only volunteers for this seemingly suicidal mission.

"We're going to head to Jackson Street where we will set up a large road block and attempt to gun these things down. Word has also been received by our runner that Umbrella has dropped a paramilitary unit into the city to help us. They will meet us there and help us contain whatever those creatures are." He then looked down at the officer sat next to Doug. "Sergeant McCandlish will be head of this operation." The officer gestured to the Sergeant, who stood up and gave them the briefing. His uniform was similar to that of Doug's, only he had a balaclava in his right hand which he would be wearing on the mission, as well as full body armour and a Kevlar helmet. As a sergeant he was older than most of the other officers in the room, approaching his mid forties but still athletically built and showed no signs of age. His blonde hair was cut incredibly short and he had a presence in the room, making the officers look up and listen carefully.

"Here's the plan" McCandlish began, looking incredibly serious. "As Lieutenant Lastimosa has already explained we'll block off Jackson Street, dig ourselves in and pump those little fuckers full of lead. As we are all in this together, I have been taking suggestions from you guys all afternoon and we have come up with a plan with help from Doug and a couple of others. Jackson Street is not too far from Brookmere Road, where there is a large industrial estate, it's a ten minute walk, but if you're running you'll be there in a lot less time than that. Should things go south, you are to head for 1741 Brookmere Road. If the order is given to retreat, you run, and nobody stops until they reach that rendezvous point. Is that clear?" The group replied "yes sir" in unison, and several other traffic officers were recruited to help park some cars in the way, as well as provide transport.

"We have also been told that the massive explosion on Main Street two days ago was the work of Kevin Ryman and a couple of others. We haven't seen them since, although it is rumoured Ryman has escaped with some refugees, although that is only speculation." Several officers looked at Doug, knowing how close the two of them were, but in his head, Doug knew Kevin was still alive, even though he didn't really want to think about that right now, he had bigger things to take care of.

September 26th 1998- 2021:

The van Doug was travelling in arrived at Jackson Street where a few patrol cars had already been parked to form a blockade. The sun had set and what light that remained had been effectively shut out due to the thick black clouds that had rolled in off the mountains in the last few hours. Spots of rain began to fall on the ground and made a hollow metallic clang when it hit the cars. As the police officers began to dig themselves in, a group of large Russian helicopters flew over and hovered above them, with the Umbrella logo emblazoned on the belly of the what appeared to be green aircraft. Several men began fast roping down to them and also dug in.

"What the hell is all this?" McCandlish asked aloud. A large man in grey combat trousers, a green jacket with black boots and black tactical vest approached him. He spoke in a thick Russian accent, although his English was near perfect.

"Nicholai Ginoveaf- Umbrella Biohazard Countermeasures Service" he announced with authority, holding his M4 Carbine in a ready position. Sergeant McCandlish didn't say a word, just nodded. He didn't want to ask questions, he saw a bunch of guys carrying assault rifles who were from a company that provided medical care to billions, and that was backup enough for him. Doug checked the MP5 he had been given for anything that could fail and took up position behind a car, getting down on one knee and pointing the gun up the street, while using the bonnet and front quarter panel of the car for cover. A young Hispanic man in the same colours as the U.B.C.S sergeant took up position next to him and they exchanged glances, but neither said a word.

"Here they come!" One officer shouted as the distant groans and shuffling got closer and closer. A whole horde of the walking dead was approaching them, and the officers and their new friends in the U.B.C.S got into a ready position.

"Wait for it..." McCandlish called to them. The adrenaline began to pump through the officers' bodies.

"Wait for it..."

"Come on..." Doug thought to himself. "Just a little closer..."

It had felt like time had slowed down. Those walkers could have been only a hundred feet away, but for the police who were brave enough to stand up against them, they were about a mile away. Doug felt like he was in some weird dream in that he was part of a B Horror movie that had no director and the events of this movie were in real life. For the first time in a couple of days, Doug was now genuinely scared, and it was too late to opt out now. The young man beside him held a frag grenade in his right hand, with his left hand on the pin. In what seemed the longest ten seconds anyone had experienced, McCandlish finally ordered weapons free. The pin on the grenade was pulled and thrown a good distance, exploding and blowing the walking dead limb from limb. The police fired at the horde, but the bullets did not seem to be doing anything and they were going through clips like no tomorrow. Dropping the MP5 Doug pulled a shotgun and fired just as a zombie came within about five feet of the patrol car he was camped behind. He pulled the trigger at near point blank range- The spread shot of the shotgun decapitating three of the zombies and showering the others with decayed brains and blood with the now dead walkers falling to their knees and falling what would be face first to the concrete

"Go for the head!" he yelled to the others.

But the call came too late. The zombies overran the barricade and began to tuck into the officers and the U.B.C.S. Before officers could react and turn to run they too were taken down, and Doug swore he could hear McCandlish yelling for them to run. Doug did so, knowing the suicidal position he was in, and he helped a fellow officer to his feet and began to run with him north towards the emergency rally point.

He wasn't going to go that way...

Or back the way he was facing...

He was trapped, but then he heard a group of officers shouting from inside an alley, and he ran towards them as the rest of the undead convened around the fallen, one of them just brushing Doug's arm, but didn't scratch or otherwise injure him. One of the seven officers who had survived had twisted his ankle and they needed to get somewhere safe. The only place they knew they could dig into that they knew well was the last bastion of hope for everybody who had survived up to this point regardless if they were a police officer, a firefighter, a doctor or a civilian: The R.P.D building. Using alleys and side streets, the officers pushed forward, with the injured officer surrounded by the others as they covered his position. Two civilians who had been hiding in a shop came running out and joined the group, hoping that they could find safety in the police station, and during the mammoth trek back, Doug began to learn what made these 'things' become attracted to their position. The obvious one was smell, but Doug had made two other observations: One of which becoming apparent as another officer shot a zombie between the eyes and four other undead civilians who were nowhere near at the time came shuffling round a street corner. These undead monsters, despite their very basic motor skills, could also hear. This theory was also proved when Doug spotted a group of them searching a damaged car that had its alarm blaring out across the street, as well as the noise of the roaring fires that had been caused as a result of gas mains getting ruptured and igniting through gunfire or the U.B.C.S deploying flash or frag grenades. Doug could only look around in disbelief as to what was going on. Raccoon City was such a peaceful town, but then again, it was also under the grip of Umbrella. Doug knew that the virus that Chris and the other S.T.A.R.S members had written about had caused all this, and now he didn't want to know what had caused it as he vowed to keep what he knew secret from everybody that he knew, including his co-workers, his family and his friends. Not that it mattered anymore, most of them were probably dead, although he was kept sane by knowing his parents and his sister were very much alive as they lived far out of town.

But then he stopped.

What if the virus had gone state-wide in the last two months? What if Raccoon City wasn't the only town infected? Stoneville, Denver, Aspen... Colorado could have been under the control of the undead by now. But they were not going to know that- The city had been shut off to the outside world, there was no way of sending a message to the police control centre, there was no way out. Only confusion and the feeling that they were just being left here to die. But Doug and the group he was with were not like that. They still had a job to do, and if there were no civilians left to save, the only people they could save were themselves. For all intents and purposes, they were still on duty, even though everybody around them was dead or dying. The gunshots behind them continued for another five minutes and slowly began to fade out like an 80s stadium rock song as one by one, U.B.C.S members and the brave volunteers from the Raccoon City Police Department were killed by the zombie mass.

They got back to the police station about twenty minutes later. They were tired, they were out of breath and they were shaken, but Doug seemed to muster the strength to run ahead as he pounded on the main double doors of the police station, as the other officers inside had locked it, due to an assault by the dead while Doug and his friends were gone. It was now raining outside, giving Doug an improvised shower since he had not had one since the day he shot that zombie in the police station's underground car park. He shouted for someone to let them in as the others came up behind. He pounded and shouted for at least a minute before finally he heard someone unlocking the door on the other side and opening it slightly to take a peek: Marvin.

"Doug" He said with a look of surprise as he opened the door fully to allow the others to enter. "Is everybody else behind you?" Doug didn't say anything. As far as he was concerned, they were everybody. David Ford was also in the main hall, and he led the survivors to the confiscation room on the second floor. On a normal day, the police would be there in moments, but tonight, the walk seems like an eternity and they had never thought of having to walk through the corridors with guns drawn and having to cover each others' backs.

The building was an old art museum, converted into the police station in the late 1980s, as the art museum was closed due to lack of interest and the police department needed a bigger precinct. Instead of having a new, larger police station built at the tax payers' expense, the Raccoon City Police Department simply knocked a few walls down and put some desks in the various rooms of the old art gallery. A move deemed as win-win by the city council. Chief Brian Irons himself was an art fanatic, as various pieces of artwork were placed around the station. The station's interior was considered 'old school' by the officers and suited the art gallery more than it suited the police station. In the main hall that they had entered, the R.P.D's emblem was painted on the floor in front of a massive statue of a woman holding a jug, something that looked very out of place. Behind the statue was a desk which served as main reception, where there was a computer that had had data regarding visitors and also controlled the electronic locks on doors within the hall. One of these doors was directly opposite the desk on the left hand side as people entered. Through here was an office area where members of the S.P.F had desks. One of the desks in this room had paper plates and party hats on it, as if it was someone's birthday or that a rookie had just joined. Immediately on the left as people walked through the main doors was another door that led into another waiting area and to a door within this room that led into the west wing of the station. This room was left relatively tidy, and the door at the back of this room was boarded shut to keep unwanted visitors at bay. Opposite the door to this room was a double door that led towards the east offices and a corridor down to interrogation and the press room, as well as another corridor that was found via the east offices that led to the stairs to the basement and the night watchman's room. Also located near the east offices was the fire exit stairs that allowed easy access to the first floor, and this is where the survivors were heading. Once upstairs, they joined the others. David Ford and Elliot Edward, two officers Doug knew well, were in here and they were able to catch their breath, get some sleep and check ammunition stocks. The next afternoon, David added extra notes to his operation report:

_Three additional people were killed following the sudden appearance of an as of yet unknown creature. _  
_This creature is identified by missing patches of skin and razor-like claws. However, its most distinguishing characteristic is its lance-like tongue, capable of piercing a human torso in an instant. _  
_Their numbers as well as their location remains unknown. we have tentatively named this creature the "licker" and are currently in the process of developing countermeasures to deal with his new threat. _  
"A licker?" Doug asked as he read what David had written. "What the hell is one of those?" "You'll know when you see it" David replied. "It killed three guys in the east halls. It was a bloodbath." David had a shotgun in his right hand and looked like the only way to get hold of it was to pry it from his cold, dead hands. Unbeknownst to the others, David had also written a memo that he was going to place somewhere in the station where survivors could read it.  
_My sanity is at its end... I still can't believe this is happening. We lost another man yesterday. Meyer; one of our better marksmen. He saw me panic once we were overrun by the zombies, but he came back to save me._  
_But when the time came to return the debt, I ran. I can still hear him calling out my name. I can still hear the screams coming from behind. The sound of his flesh being stripped from his bones. I was afraid... Terrified..._  
_It's the 27__th__. The fight to stay alive continues. I took out several zombies who managed to break through the barricades. Now I'm cutting through the chill with whiskey, unloading my Mossberg on anything undead. That shogun has become my best friend. I've blasted many a zombie into fertilizer with it._  
_We've lost thirteen men as of yesterday. In three hours, we'll bicker over trivial things in the meeting room. It's a total fucking waste of time. When I finish this bottle, my old friend Mossberg will be turning one last body into fertilizer. Peace at last._  
_I can hardly wait..._  
"We've gotta get out of here" Elliot announced. "Yeah, thanks Captain Obvious" Iain, one of the officers who arrived with Doug scoffed. Tensions had been running high since they got back. The officers were starting to lose their mind and they knew the end was imminent. "What's your damn problem?" Elliot asked, standing up. Iain also stood up and there was a tense confrontation. "All I'm saying is that it's all well and good saying that we need to leave when going out on to those streets is suicidal. We're the only cops left! Plus who knows how many people are still alive out there that need rescuing." Elliot was taller and better built than Iain, who was thinner and younger. In his stressed out state, Elliot raised his handgun and pointed it between Iain's eyes with one outstretched hand. Immediately, Doug stood up and pointed his handgun at the side of Elliot's head with an outstretched hand. "This is not helping at all" he said sternly. "You pull that trigger, you not only kill him, but you'll attract more of those things to our position and all of us will be dead before you know it. So if any of you are thinking of blowing your brains out, you do it alone and away from those of us who still have the will to live." David began to look around the room. He was one of those people, but he didn't exactly want to die alone in a secluded area of the police station since the chances are he would be dead by the time he got to where it was he wanted to be. Elliot realised Doug was right and he promptly apologised and lowered his gun. "Elliot is right though." Doug continued. "We have to get out of here. If any civilians were still alive they'd be here by now. I know this sounds selfish but the time has come for us to save ourselves. There's very little we can do for these people now, especially when those things are constantly assaulting this building." He took hold of David's report. "Thirteen people lost in three days... That's good enough reason for us to leave." "But the door to the basement is locked" David told him. "And there's no power to the shutters in the garage." Doug checked the magazine on his Beretta, and realised he only had one round in the chamber. He headed for a box in the corner, where he remembered where he might find a new weapon. Inside the box was the Glock 17 he had taken from Ben when he had arrested him. Also in the room was a fully loaded shotgun that would serve him well. Doug checked his equipment and faced David, who was sat on the floor using a pile of boxes to keep him sat upright. "So lets go and restore the power then." He smiled. David looked down at his whiskey and realised that there was only a tiny sip left. He quickly swigged it and stood up to join Doug on their suicidal mission. It was now 1am on the morning of the 28th, although for the officers it felt like they had been stuck in this building for months, with time only seeming to pass while they slept, and it was through sleeping they had arrived at this time of day. Doug gingerly opened the door and looked around. The lights in the building were still on although they were dimmed, but he could still see where he was going. "The key is in the East Office" Elliot explained. "Should you get that door open, return it, because we don't know if any of those things have the intelligence to use keys." Doug nodded and left the room, with Elliot quietly closing it behind them. The shotgun and the Glock were the only protection he had, and he was hoping to whatever god existed that David was not too drunk to shoot if he had to. The floorboards beneath them creaked as they headed for the secretary's office that appeared to be just fine given the circumstances. It was as if no one had been through here since the outbreak. On the other side of the room was the door to the main hall, and this was opened incredibly carefully.  
On the balcony that ran round the right hand wall, the back wall and round to the left hand side were a few of the officers who had died and reanimated as the walking dead. Doug drew the Glock and fired at the heads of them at close range, killing them instantly. They checked all around before heading round to the door to the library, as the emergency ladder that allowed emergency access to the ground floor was up and they didn't want to lower it in case the zombies could climb up it. They cautiously treaded through the library, with Doug stopping to liberate any handgun magazines from Ed's body. Two magazines for a Beretta 92FS, the standard issue handgun to R.P.D officers, were in the magazine pouches on Ed's brown leather shoulder holster, which was worn over his button up shirt but underneath his casual suit jacket to keep his gun concealed as he was a plain clothes detective rather than a regular officer.  
Doug decided that on their way to the east office, they should stop by the S.T.A.R.S office to see if there was anything in there that could be used as a weapon and if there were any spare boxes of ammunition in there, as nobody had any real reason to be in there apart from the S.T.A.R.S members, and even in these desperate times, the surviving officers had not been in there. They poked their heads in. It was tidy, although Wesker's desk had been trashed, as if someone had been frantically searching for something specific. A box of shotgun shells sat on Barry's desk, and on Joseph's desk, David found a combat knife in its sheath. He exchanged this for the box of shotgun shells picked up by Doug and Doug strapped the knife sheath to his right thigh, with his handgun holster on his left, as he is not only a left handed shooter, he had been handed a couple of magazine pouches that could only be fitted to the black belt around his waist. As a result, his modifiable handgun holster had to go on his thigh. This didn't bother Doug that much. He found it more comfortable drawing from the thigh than the waist, and the extra magazines he could carry with him could mean the difference between life and death. "Have you seen this?" David asked, pointing at the bank of radio equipment used by S.T.A.R.S. The console had been smashed, burn marks on the olive green metal. "Irons..." Doug whispered to himself, knowing it was the chief that had done it. The zombies couldn't have done it, why would the radio equipment be totalled and the rest of the office bar Wesker's desk be intact? "You think Irons trashed that desk over there as well?" David asked, pointing at Wesker's desk. "No..." Doug replied. "Chris and Barry went through that when they got home from the mountains." David gave Doug a funny look. He had been in here before? Regular officers _never_ got to see the inside of this office. "They were right..." David sighed, shaking his head before shouting. "Damn it Doug, they were right!" He swung at a pile of papers on Wesker's desk and caused them to crash to the floor before falling to his knees and sobbing. Doug placed his shotgun on Brad's desk and comforted his friend, whose sanity was hanging by a thread. All this time Doug had maintained a cool head but he too was feeling the strain; But he could not show any emotion because he would have just made David's condition worse. "Come on David" He said calmly, giving his friend a brotherly embrace. "This will all be over soon. We'll soon be out of here" He picked David to his feet and they left the office. They finally reached the stairwell and carefully made their way down, checking nooks and crannies for anything out of the ordinary. Forward they moved to the first door on their right, thinking that something may be of use in the briefing room. In this corridor all the windows were boarded up from the first attack on the 26th and glass and debris littered the floor. Inside the wrecked briefing room was nothing, so they pressed forward to give the entire floor a good check in the hope their missing weapons cache could be found. In the corridor ahead, there was a sight that shocked the pair of them: Blood... But it was _everywhere_: On the walls, on the ceiling and all over the floor, as if someone had been dragged away by something as it bled out, but no body or bodies were to be found. As they tiptoed a little further, they realised the had company: A sibilant hissing sound could be heard as well as what sounded like claws creeping over a surface...  
And whatever it was jumped out at them, causing Doug to jump out of the way to the floor thanks to his quick reflexes, causing his uniform to be soaked in the still wet blood that was on the floor on his left side while David fired at the monstrosity, not being able to do anything to it, as if he was missing. The beast, which resembled a human being turned inside out with large muscle mass and an oversized brain and a large tongue turned to face David and thrust at him with its tongue, piercing his torso and heart and causing him to scream out in agony. The being put one foot on David's fallen torso and using its other foot proceeded to twist his head off, causing more blood to be sprayed over any surface nearby. Doug didn't need to think twice and he turned to run, not looking back, but feeling immense sorrow for the loss of his friend and co-worker. He was not the only person involved in carnage either, he could hear banging and gunshots coming from upstairs. Elliot and the others must have tried to move to somewhere else. Doug ran back to the corridor near the stairwell and turned right through the storage room into the east office to grab that key that the others could use to get into the basement. Slumped up against a locker near the door to the main hall was an African-American man in an R.P.D uniform: Marvin. "You're three minutes too late" Marvin panted, holding onto a wound that was slowly bleeding out. "You're here for the heart key, right? Here. Take it. Get out of here and don't turn back." "Marvin... I..." Doug couldn't figure what to say. He had just lost David and was now losing another friend, not just his superior officer. Doug bent down on one knee and checked the wound to see if it could be treated. It was an instinctive reaction, but he knew there was nothing he could do. Marvin would be one of the zombies soon, and there was nothing he could do to stop that. Reaching into his ammunition pouch, Doug gave Marvin a spare clip and stood up. "It's been a pleasure working with you sir" He managed to force a smile. Marvin coughed and laughed. "Just get Elliot and whoever is left out of here." Doug turned and headed back the way he came, just in time to see the other officers piling into the dark room. Doug followed them in and they locked themselves in the dark room.  
"Where's David?" Elliot asked worriedly. Doug's silence explained it all. Elliot cursed and shouted as well as kicking a locker hard that was in the room. "And Marvin? And we also lost Joe and Gary on the way over here... Shit, shit, shit, shit SHIT!" He kicked the locked every time he swore, causing it to buckle from the impact with his boot. He grabbed a piece of paper and a pen that were in the room to write notes on the photographs that were developed in this room and checked his watch before writing an operation report:

_ September 28th _

_ Early morning 2:30 AM. Zombies overran our operation room and another _

_ battle broke out. We lost 4 more people, including David. _

_ We're down to 4 people, including myself. We failed to secure the weapons _

_ cache and hope for our survival continues to diminish. We won't last much longer... _

_ We agreed upon a plan to escape through the sewer. There's a path leading_

_ from the precinct underground to the sewage disposal plant. We should be _

_ able to access the sewers through there. The only drawback is that there is no _

_ guarantee the sewer disposal plant is free of any possible dangers. _

_ We know our chances in the sewer are slim, but anything is better than simply _

_ waiting here to die. _

_ In order to buy more time, we locked the only door leading to the underground, which is located in the eastern office. We left the key behind in_

_ the western office since its unlikely that any of those creatures have the _

_ intelligence to find it and unlock the door. _

_ I pray that this operation report will be helpful to whoever may find it. _

_ Recorder: Elliot Edward_


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

September 28th- 0630:

Now that it was daylight the remaining police officers could make an attempt at getting out. Elliot and the four remaining officers plus Doug were sat in the dark room on the police station's ground floor.

"Someone will need to lock that door and return the key to the west office before they follow us out" Elliot explained. "I guess we'll have shortage of volunteers for this job." The survivors all looked at each other and clearly looked like they didn't want to be the ones that had to do it. This was when Richard had an idea.

"Hey, you know those stairs out the front?" He asked. "There's that small service tunnel that will lead directly into the parking lot. All of us are capable of fitting through that gap easily. All we gotta do is find a van and drive on out. Ennerdale Street isn't as blocked up as we first thought." Elliot nodded and metaphorically kicked himself over not thinking about it before.

"It's a risk I'm willing to take" he told the group, and they too agreed. Heading through the west office to the main hall, with Doug returning the key along the way, they exited through the main double doors and headed down the stairs behind the gardens to find the service tunnel. They each climbed through to secure the car park, and were surprised to find three U.B.C.S members who had ditched their combat jackets and carried their rifles, five civilians, three of whom were holding handguns, and a paramedic.

"You're the luckiest sons of bitches in the world" Elliot laughed. "We were just leaving". He opened up the back of a S.W.A.T van, the only one that had not been used in the unsuccessful defence against the undead and helped everybody inside. Doug headed through the blue door at one end of the car park to head towards the cells.

"Last chance Ben" he called to his prisoner, rattling the bars to get his attention. "The last survivors are leaving now, and if you want to live, it's best you come with us.

"Sorry officer" Ben told him quickly. "Not going to happen. I want to stay right here." Doug sighed a hefty sigh. As Doug had no real power over anybody anymore due to the circumstances, he would not be able to force Ben to come along.

"Alright then" He told the reporter. "I've given you the key to the cell and officers have provided you with enough food to last about three days. I hope you decide to leave soon. The city belongs to them now." He turned to leave.

"Wait!" Ben called after him. "Maybe it's a good thing you're getting out. Here." He handed Doug a piece of paper, a copy of a report he had written. "Best of luck to you officer." Doug nodded and ran back to the car park where Elliot was closing one of the doors on the back of the van.

"Richard and one of those soldiers have got the shutter up so we can drive on out" he announced. "Mount up so we can get out of here." Doug looked at the door he had just returned through.

"I'm staying" he announced. Everyone who heard him looked at him as though he was joking, and Doug looked at everybody in turn. "As soon as I've confirmed this building is evacuated I'll follow you in a Crown Vic and meet you in Stoneville. He handed Elliot a mobile phone he had taken from the confiscation room the other night just in case something like this would happen. "Our walkie-talkies won't have the range to communicate over that distance. The number for my phone is programmed in. As soon as you reach the hospital in Stoneville you ring me. Got it?" Elliot nodded.

"You're either really brave, really crazy or both" He told his friend before starting up the engine to the van. The lights were turned on and he headed up the ramp out the car park to the streets to begin their escape. When the van had cleared the shutter, Doug closed it to prevent anything getting in and moved towards a smaller van that was in the garage. Taking the handbrake off he pushed it in front of the corridor leading to Ben, at least giving him some protection and the opportunity to escape using the sewers should he want to.

The main hall was deserted, and Doug was beginning to feel that aside from himself, Ben and Marvin, the station was indeed empty. It would be worth one last check though. He had not been near the night watchman's room, the press room or the interrogation room since all this began and was beginning to wonder if there were survivors in there. He headed for the reception desk near the back wall and activated the intercom.

"Attention" he began in an authoritative voice, the sound of the intercom echoing throughout the main hall and the rest of the station. "If anybody is still within this building, officer or civilian, I am giving you ten minutes to get to the main hall before the last evacuation transport leaves. If you are not here before 0800 hours, there will be no more police protection in this building. This is your last chance at escape before this station belongs to them. Please be in the main hall in ten minutes. Thank you."

There was silence. But Doug sincerely hoped that someone was still alive in the building, to make his decision to stay behind worth it. He could be in Elliot's police van right now almost tasting freedom, but his need to protect and serve had fully taken over. He thought he'd go for one last check around the station before his ten minute window ran out. He opened the door to the west office and saw that Marvin was now passed out on the floor, so Doug placed his shotgun beside the unconscious body, offering his friend a little more protection. The Glock was almost empty, but that didn't bother him, as he was going to be leaving here soon and didn't have any need for a gun. As he walked down the corridor towards the S.T.A.R.S office, he heard a commotion from outside. Running to the window at the end of the corridor where it turned sharply to the left he saw what was going on.

"Jill! Jill!" A man called out. He was wearing woodland camouflage trousers, a white t-shirt and a yellow flight jacket. All of which was covered in his blood. Doug recognised this man. It was Brad Vickers, S.T.A.R.S Alpha Team's pilot. Jill Valentine was also outside and from nowhere, someone, or something else joined them. It wasn't human, that's for sure, as no human beings were over eight feet tall. Brad tried to scurry away and had a look of terror on his face as he was backed up against the wall by the gates to the courtyard. The monster growled and paced towards Brad with heavy footsteps, with Brad practically begging for his life. As he was lifted into the air by this monster, he began calling to Jill for her to help him. Doug and Jill could only watch as a tentacle protruded from the monster's hand and while holding Brad by the throat, the monster drove the tentacle through Brad's skull. Brad's body convulsed, the screams muffled by him gargling his own blood. Tossing the body aside, the monster turned to face Jill while speaking a single word:

"S.T.A.R.S"

Jill could not fight this monstrosity with just her handgun, so she quickly turned and sprinted into the main hall of the police station to find sanctuary. As she slammed the door behind her, the beast was left alone in the courtyard with Brad's body. But that was when it looked up to see Doug at the window, and Doug was able to get a good look at the monster: It wore a large black protective coat with black trousers and massive black boots, giving it a somewhat humanoid shape. Its skin was almost green in colour, with a single glazed over eye and staples on the right hand side of its head presumably where its brain had been experimented upon, with the lack of lips creating a creepy permanent grin. Doug knew this thing was different. All the zombies and lickers had been created through this strange virus... This creature had been created to serve a purpose. The monster stared at Doug momentarily, its breath turning to steam in the crisp autumn air. Doug held his breath, thinking that it would break through the doors and chase him down too...

But the monster turned and walked away, confusing Doug extensively. He watched as it opened the gates and walked back onto the streets as if it was human, its footsteps thudding on the ground. Doug closed his eyes and sighed. He was safe, at least for now. He then remembered what Chris and the others had told him about the Umbrella labs. Was that monster a variation on the 'Tyrant'? What Doug had failed to realise is that in the time he had spent watching the events outside, the corridor had become populated with zombies. By the time Doug had turned, they were already on him, and they were two officers he recognised. He punched Gary hard in the face while keeping Joe at bay with his free hand. After forcing them back a few feet, he drew his Glock and shot Gary clean between the eyes. However, by the time he could acquire a new target, he found himself wrestling with another zombie, a civilian. The only way to stay alive would be to take drastic measures and he threw himself and the zombie he was wrestling with out of the window. The zombie landed on the concrete floor below, killing it due to the impact, while Doug landed in a small bush. His fall had been broken, but he was still injured...

September 28th- 1030:

Doug groaned as he crawled out of the bush. He hurt all over and his uniform was covered in dirt and small tears had appeared in the seams.

_Of all the things to land in... I had to land in the only rose bush..._ Once out, he picked himself to his feet and took a good look around. It was daylight, and although it was overcast, it was the brightest it had been for a long time. He patted himself down and realised he was in trouble.

_Shit... Lost everything but my knife..._ He felt a bulge in one of his pockets: It was the mobile phone that he had told Elliot to ring him on the moment they found sanctuary out of town. The screen was cracked and it wouldn't turn back on. Even if Elliot and the others had found safety in Stoneville, there was no way Doug was going to find out. Looking up, Doug saw a figure in a blue tube top and black knee length skirt with brown boots making her way out the front gate. He raised a hand as if he was reaching out to her.

"J... Jill!" But it was no use, the shock resulting from his fall had left him unable to shout, and he could only watch as the gates shut behind the woman.

_I have to follow her..._

He finally picked himself to his feet and walked over to Brad's body. In his holster was his S.T.A.R.S issue handgun, fully loaded with fifteen rounds.

_That was lucky..._

Without looking back, he opened the gates and tried to pursue Jill. The streets were almost silent, with the distant groans of the walking dead and the crackling of the fires the only soundtrack. There was a light breeze too, making the city truly feel like a horror movie. Doug hadn't been on the streets for a while, but in the time he had arrived at the fight and leaving the police station, things had changed drastically. The crashed police car immediately to his right was not there before and neither was all the broken glass and scattered newspapers. It seemed that everything in the city had been broken. He had to make a decision on which way to go: Left or right. This was due to the annoying fact he had no idea as to which way Jill had gone. At least there were at least two other people alive besides him. Jill being one, Ben being the other. As much as he didn't want to think about it, Marvin was as good as dead. Luckily, Doug thought of every possible scenario that could happen to him now and his escape, should his escape ambitions become a reality.

_Peoples' pets... What if their dogs are infected? Finding myself in a built up area... I need to get to the suburbs... I also must get my hands on some more weaponry... And just what the hell was that thing that killed Brad?_

The creepiest thing about all this was not the fact that the city was full of the walking dead and that there was destruction caused to every part of the city, it's that it was so quiet, save for the obvious song of the undead. Doug remembered that just a week ago cars were driving on the same piece of tarmac he was standing on, officers had lunch in the police station's gardens behind him and lovers ate in the Italian restaurant a little further up the road. Now though, there was nothing. Aside from him, Jill and Ben; there was no one. He was it. Besides himself, there was only one other survivor of that intense battle a couple of days before. Ironically, it was the officer who injured his ankle and had to be carried back to the police station- The last remaining bastion of hope of security for the civilians of Raccoon City, and with the police station now belonging to the undead, nowhere was safe. Jill Valentine resigned from S.T.A.R.S on September 11th, and therefore was no longer on the R.P.D's payroll. That could only mean one thing:

Doug was the only surviving officer... He could not believe he was the only one left. Out of an eight hundred plus group of officers, he was the last one alive in the city. Of course, it was only speculation, as he wasn't to know the fate of the others who had driven off a couple of hours before. He wanted to hope they were okay, but now he had to be selfish and put his own personal welfare above everything else.

_This protect and serve bullshit needs to stop now_ he told himself sternly. _It's now time _you_ got out of here_. _You've just had a lucky escape, how many more times do you want to chance it?_

Remembering his personal mission, he chose the left path, and found himself walking down a nearby street that turned off Ennerdale. To his right was a book shop, and to his left was an Italian restaurant. There were the bodies of recently killed zombies down here, identifiable by the bullet holes in the heads and the blood spreading out from underneath the exit wound. Through his mind he kept wondering if this was Jill Valentine's work. Out of anybody in this city, she had the most experience, and it was her experiences in the Arklay Mountains that have allowed her to survive this long.

_That and her S.T.A.R.S training _Doug thought to himself as he headed up the street. Ahead of him was his worst nightmare... About forty zombies heading towards him. Each of them looking to have him for breakfast. Looking directly behind him, he saw another ten or twelve heading his way, many of them officers he once knew. They posed less of a threat, but Doug felt he had been given his number of get out of jail free cards today. Seeing an alley to his right that was clear, he ran for it, not giving his injuries a second thought.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

September 28th- 1154:

Doug sprinted through the streets of Raccoon City, giving vicious shoulder charges to any undead civilians that blocked his way and ducking round others. He was battered from having dived out of that window, but the adrenaline was taking over right now. He was on a narrow shopping street, close to the centre of the city, having escaped the police station and run on to Warren Street, heading away from the police station on Ennerdale Street north towards the industrial estates. His gun was empty, so he was going to rely on his quick reflexes and his cunning to survive this ordeal. It was around 12:00, but it was hard to tell being that half of the city was on fire and it was very overcast with thick black smoke helping to shut out the light. Doug took a right on to Flower Street, a street with some small independent shops and a couple of apartment buildings on it, amongst these shops down a small branch off the street included a ma and pa sports shop, a florist, a restaurant and a second hand record store. Seeing a group of undead civilians heading his way, this small side street was the only place left for him to go. His side was hurting and his legs were beginning to ache as the adrenaline was starting to wear off. As he reached the end of the street and a dead end, he tripped over a fallen street sign and tumbled to the ground, aggravating his injuries. The next thing he could see was a zombie dressed in a police uniform coming slowly towards him and was getting close, with Doug having no strength to get back to his feet or at least try to fight back. As the zombie was about to bend down to snack on Doug's flesh, a gunshot rang out from behind them in the apartment block that looked up the side street towards Flower Street, echoing throughout the immediate area. The zombie's head snapped back, before falling forward, but Doug found himself able to lift his right boot into the air and kick the zombie to one side. Immediately to his right, he saw a wooden baseball bat lying in the open and rolled over to grab it and picked himself to his feet, staggering around as he got back up. Another zombie approached, this time coming from the apartment building and again the gunshot rang out hitting the zombie in the leg. As it fell to its knees, Doug raised the baseball bat into a right handed stance and swung at the zombie's head, sending it flying up the road as if it was a game deciding pitch in the final game of the World Series. A groan from behind alerted Doug, but there was no gunshot. Instead, Doug ducked under the grab attempt by the zombie, and as it turned around, it had no time to do anything as it was kicked in the chin, snapping the neck back and breaking it as it was so weak. Doug stumbled around and leaned up against a lamp post before sliding down it and using it to prop himself up once he hit the ground. He looked left and noticed someone carrying a sniper rifle heading towards him, reloading it. He knew instantly that this person was his saviour.

"Thanks" he panted, relieved at his own luck. "That's some good aim you've got."

"And that's a good swing that you've got" the sniper replied. Doug looked up and got a good look at the sniper. It was a woman. She helped Doug get to his feet and began checking him over for bite marks. She was wearing a pair of jeans and a snug fitting black t-shirt, as well as wearing a black baseball cap on her head with the ponytail of her light brown hair protruding through the adjustable strap at the back. "Have you been bitten?" She asked.

"No" Doug replied. "Any scratches I have are from jumping out the upstairs floor of the R.P.D building and landing in a bush." He looked around and noticed some zombies wandering around aimlessly on the main street. "Come on, it's too dangerous here, let's head into that restaurant there." They moved as quickly and as quietly as possible into the restaurant that was still relatively intact and a quick search revealed no one to be in the building. The sniper sat on a table while Doug leaned against the counter, still holding his side.

"So what are you? US Army, SEALS, Delta Force or are you with the USMC?" Doug asked. "I didn't think women were allowed to do front line work."

"We're not" the sniper replied. "I'm neither of those. I'm just a civilian. If you're wondering where I learned to shoot, it's a family thing."

"Did you learn from your father or something?" Doug enquired.

"No" the woman told him. "My step brother was in S.T.A.R.S Bravo Team. Did you know Forest Speyer at all?" Doug's eyes widened and he hung his head. He did indeed know Forest.

"I'm sorry…" Was the only thing Doug could think of to say to her. He didn't know much about losing family members, and to lose someone in the way she lost Forest, whether they were blood relatives or not, was something that would be truly heart wrenching from his point of view

"I can't believe Umbrella could have done something like this." The sniper shook her head sadly. "But I refuse to go the same way as Forest, I'd like to help you get out of here, there's no way anyone else could still be alive."

"If that's the case" Doug added. "If we're going to be working together, we'd better know each others' names first."

"Megan Bellamy."

"Officer Endsleigh- Raccoon City Police Department." Doug replied, "But you can call me Doug given this highly informal situation." Once Doug had caught his breath, they headed back out onto the streets of Raccoon City.

"If we're going to have any chance of escape, we're going to need some weapons." Doug explained. "This baseball bat isn't going to cut it anymore." Megan was confused, so Doug lifted the baseball bat into view. It was snapped in two, with just the handle left, so he threw it to one side. He put his hands on his hips and sighed as his radio kicked into life.

"Our platoon is cut off!" A South American voice was heard. "No survivors found! This is Carlos, requesting evac transport immediately!" The transmission went dead and any attempt by Doug to contact Carlos was met by static. Doug checked his radio.

"The smoke must be interfering with the signal." He thought aloud before looking at Megan. "Come on, there's a gun shop just around the corner, we'll go there and see if the guy who owns it has anything left... Provided he's still alive" They hurried back on to Flower Street, with Megan now wearing her rifle on her back and holding an SP2009 handgun, standard issue to the U.B.C.S members that were deployed to help the officers in that failed suppression attempt a couple of days ago. Using an alley running round the back of the police station, with Raccoon City hall to their right, they ended up on Central Street, with a variety of shops in front of them. Doug led the way, knowing this city like the back of his hand, and led Megan down the street and into a wide alley off to the left, where a Jeep was parked with the boot open and two boxes of ammunition on display, each containing forty five rounds of ammunition. Doug picked up the boxes and immediately stashed one in a magazine pouch in his uniform and had Megan guard his back while he refilled an empty magazine that was in one of his ammunition pouches on his belt. When the gun was usable again, Doug kept it drawn, ready to take out anything that attacked them. Megan looked inside the gun shop, and no one appeared to be around, just smashed cases and glass and papers littering the floor. Doug gingerly pushed the door handle down and slowly opened the door, with the little bell ringing as he opened it, using his free hand to aim his gun. Megan entered behind him and when they realised the single room shop was clear, they lowered their pistols, but still keeping them drawn.

"Robert!" Doug called out. "Are you in here, buddy?" Megan checked behind a counter in the far corner of the room while Doug picked up a handgun magazine off the floor.

"Alright you two that's far enough!" A voice replied, making the two survivors turn to face the source. A half Japanese man who was well built and clutching a shotgun in his hands was behind the main counter. Megan and Doug raised their guns and there was a brief stand-off.

"Rob, take it easy. It's me, Doug" the officer assured him, "Doug Endsleigh, from the R.P.D?" Robert slowly lowered the gun, revealing a few blood stains on his dirty white shirt, while his blue jeans and brown shoes were relatively clean. Bags had appeared under his eyes due to a lack of sleep and his hair was messy and filled with grease through not showering. Robert breathed a sigh of relief.

"Sorry about that officer, I guess I should have realised you weren't one of them when you called out for me." He noticed Doug's gun. "Where the hell did you get that handgun? That's a Samurai Edge handgun, the ones we made for S.T.A.R.S." Doug told him about Brad, and Robert was genuinely upset by what had happened, but was relieved to find that Barry, Rebecca, Richard and Chris were out of town. He asked Doug what it was he wanted, and when told about his need for weapons, Robert said he had nothing much to offer, having handed out nearly all of his stock to the townspeople just before the outbreak reached fever pitch. However, he did have something left, and reached under the counter, placing a black Beretta 92 in sight of Doug and Megan, as well as some beige coloured combat trousers and a basic Kevlar vest.

"It's all I have left." Robert explained. "If you want it, take it." Megan picked up the clothes and headed behind the other counter in the shop to change. Doug took Megan's SIG Pro and exchanged it for the Beretta.

"You'll want this over the SIG Pro" he explained. "If you happen to shoot any zombie officers, you can just take their clips and pop them in, instead of taking time swapping the ammo from one clip to the other." It was a great sense of logic, and when Megan thought about it, it seemed like it would work in both theory and in practice. Doug then turned to Robert "You should consider getting out of town Rob" Doug warned him. "There's nothing more for you here." Robert rolled up his shirt sleeve and showed them the bandage.

"Not going anywhere now I'm like this" He said sadly. "You're the ones who need to get out of here. Now go." Megan and Doug nodded and they left the way they came in.

"How do you suggest we get out of town with all of these crashed and burning cars in the way?" Megan asked, constantly looking around for threats as well as tugging on her new trousers as they were rather tight fitting against her slender body. Doug informed her that there was a tram station about a mile away that they could use to get to the main train station in the north west of the city that also ran the main freight line towards Stoneville and split off just outside of Raccoon City to head south towards Denver, or to the suburbs if they so wished to try and get some food from someone's fridge or 'borrow' a car. If they could reach the train station, then all they would have to do is get an engine car and get it outside the city limits. The only down side to this plan is that they would have to get there on foot and with all the dangers present, they had no idea how long this expedition was going to take. All they knew was they had hours to live, if not that- minutes. They headed north along Central Street, past the Arukas Tailor to the intersection with Main Street, where three hundred yards up the road Doug's friend Kevin had detonated the C4 that successfully killed around a thousand undead civilians on the 24th. A few hundred yards past this intersection was the intersection with Euston Street where about a quarter of a mile up the road the U.B.C.S and the Raccoon Police department frantically tried to fight off the growing zombie population with police car and police van barricades. In the distance they spotted the dim flashes of police car lights as the batteries on the cars began to run dry. The pair cautiously headed up the street towards the blockade. Doug knew all about this place: He had been here when it all happened, with Sergeant McCandlish telling the officers under his command that if they were overrun they were to head run north towards the industrial area and not stop until they reached the rendezvous point at the Smiths Gore Distribution warehouse on Newcombe Way, but unfortunately for Doug and the R.P.D's survivors, only two S.P.F members besides him survived the attack, the other survivors being regular traffic officers.

"Why exactly are we coming down here given what happened?" Megan asked as they approached one of the cars. Doug bent down and picked up an MP5 sub machine gun off the floor, as well as the some spare magazines that were lying nearby, dropped by the officers when they fell. Megan found it rather disturbing that the officers and U.B.C.S members that were here were now gone, and that could only mean one thing: They had turned into zombies. Megan discovered a U.B.C.S soldier lying on the ground; his head missing due to it having being twisted clean off by something that was definitely not a zombie. Inside the soldier's jacket was a written order from command:

_Mission Requirements: Bravo 16 _

_1: Obtain and secure samples of all the information pertaining to this case. Observe and record combat data on the U.B.C.S. _

_2: Destroy all the evidence including the medical facility that has the medical treatment data. _

_3: Check the guinea pig's ability to accomplish the mission. _

_Once your mission is complete, evacuate the area. Remember that you must not help anyone who is not a supervisor, nor bring back anything that might be traced to where it belongs._

"What is the U.B.C.S?" Megan thought aloud. Doug stood beside her and took a look at the note and explained who they were to her. Megan had only heard about what Umbrella's twisted conspiracies were, but Doug had seen the reports and heard first hand accounts as to what Umbrella truly developed. While the civilians saw them as a huge multinational corporation that made everyday pills and potions, Doug knew for a fact that this faceless organisation had a bigger history, a bigger portfolio and bigger motives:

The Umbrella Corporation began back in the mid 1960s when Lord Ozwell E. Spencer, friend Edward Ashford scientist James Marcus and Marcus' student Brandon Bailey went to Africa upon hearing in a book written by explorer Henry Travis that in the lost kingdom of Ndipaya, legend had it that there was a plant that gave great powers to those who could survive its poisonous blossom. Spencer and Ashford rediscovered the lost kingdom, an ancient underground city surrounding the legendary flower, which Travis had referred to as the 'Stairway to the Sun.' The group returned to North America in 1967 and immediately they discovered that the flowers could not produce the virus it contained if they were removed from their natural habitat. In the March of 1967, Spencer decided to start a company, although Bailey was against the idea, who felt that it would be pointless since the flower was not able to produce its deadly toxin, which was named 'Progenitor'. George Trevor, a New York based Architect who had been working since 1962 finally completed Lord Spencer's mansion in the mountains surrounding a small town in Colorado and was invited to see his project by Spencer. While wandering around the manor, Trevor constantly noticed things that either were out of place or were not supposed to exist. The most notable incident was when he observed a deep hole being dug under the place he had designed a fountain to stand; these were to be the foundations of the laboratory just being built there. Also, he noticed some of his original designs had been warped to become lethal. Some time later, he was abruptly informed his wife and daughter had been killed by a rare, quick illness. Believing his family had been killed under Spencer's orders, Trevor tried to leave the estate, but was quickly imprisoned.

While escaping, he lost his favourite lighter, and was horrified to find one of his wife's shoes lying around in the manor. His memory affected after being drugged, he struggled to remember the many puzzles he had devised, such as the Tiger Eyes and the Gold Emblem. He tried to escape via a secret network of underground tunnels he had devised as a last-ditch escape route, but always found himself with no way out.

After running from the guards for weeks, George found himself in a position he did not like: he was forced to go into hiding into one of the unfinished passages. Half-starved and severely weakened, he did not remember the majority of the secrets he had designed himself and was tortured by the knowledge he had dragged his family into a nest of vipers. Scurrying away to the hidden corridor, he jumped into a pit that led to the secret path. Nonetheless, his pace was blocked by a heavy stone he could not move. Touching it in the darkness of the pit, he knew there were letters engraved into the plaque. Lighting his last match, he saw his own name inscribed into the tombstone. Realising it was always his ultimate fate to die in that manor, he collapsed. After pleading in his diary to his wife and daughter to forgive him, he quit struggling and finally died of starvation in the inescapable corridor.

In 1968, Umbrella was officially founded, and research began in labs underneath the Spencer Estate, with researchers living in the many bedrooms of the house. However, Ashford died from exposure to Progenitor, and Bailey was forced to remain behind in Africa, sending samples of Progenitor to Marcus who was in charge of a training facility about a mile away from the main mansion. Seeking new information on the Progenitor Virus, Marcus deliberately infected some of his researchers with the virus and when they ultimately died, he disposed of their corpses in the water treatment facility. The bodies would be found forty years later by Rebecca Chambers and Billy Coen, who were trying to escape the horrors of the mountains as well as trying to find out what happened. Ten years later in 1978, Marcus began to inject leeches with the Progenitor Virus and witnessed the creation of a new strain when the RNA of the leeches fused with the virus. This would be the creation of what began the horrors in the Raccoon City area: The Tyrant Virus, or T-Virus as it became known. The training facility was shut down later that year, and Marcus' two best students Albert Wesker and William Birkin were sent to the labs beneath Spencer's mansion. Marcus became suspicious that someone was tampering with his research and in his increasing paranoia brought on by his quest for glory and his isolation from anybody else, wrote in his diary that Albert and William were the only two humans on earth he trusted. His trust in them would be betrayed in 1988 however, when a Special Forces unit under Spencer's orders burst into his lab and gunned him down, the last two things he saw being Wesker and Birkin. Like his guinea pigs, Marcus was dumped in the water treatment facility and credit for the T-Virus went to William. Marcus' trust in William also rendered any chance of hiding the source of the virus useless. Birkin though had little to no care for the T-Virus by now, as during the twisted experiments conducted on George Trevor's daughter Lisa by injecting her with variations of the T-Virus and Progenitor Virus, the G-Virus had been discovered, and he wanted to devote more time into it.

While George was writhing in his eternal resting place, Lisa, George's wife and Jessica his daughter were kidnapped by Spencer's henchman, and used as human test subjects for the Progenitor virus. On November 10 1967, Lisa was administered the "Type-B" variation of the virus, while her mother was administered with "Type-A". Lisa's body didn't immediately begin to exhibit signs of mutation and absorb the virus. Over a period of time, under observation, both Lisa's mental and physical states were grotesquely altered. Documentation found by S.T.A.R.S member Richard Aiken suggested that Umbrella killed Jessica shortly after she was given the Progenitor virus because she displayed no reaction to the treatment. In order to pacify Lisa, who had been separated from her mother during their imprisonment, Umbrella sent in staffers who had been disguised as Lisa's parents to provide her with a sense of security; however, Lisa was able to recognize them as impostors and violently killed them. Umbrella made repeated attempts to subdue Lisa, but all attempts failed when she ripped off their faces and attaching them to her own body for safe-keeping. The increasingly mentally unstable and lonely Lisa grew obsessed with finding her true mother so that she could "give her back her face". Lisa was able to find the secret tomb of her mother, built under the Spencer Estate. While she was able to recognise the scent of her mother, she was unable to open the stone coffin and "reunite" with her.

_Nov. 14, 1967_

_I feel dizzy after that shot they gave me. I don't see Mom. Where did they take her? _

_She promised that we would escape together. Did she escape alone and leave me behind? _

_Nov. 15, 1967_

_I found Mom. We ate together. I was very happy. _

_But she was a fake. Not my real Mom. _

_Same face but different inside. _

_Have to find Mom. Have to give face back to mother. _

_I got Mom's face back. _

_Nobody can have my Mom except me. I attach her face to me so she doesn't go away. _

_Because Mom sad when I meet her without her face. _

_Nov. 17, 19 7 _

_from inside box, scent of mommy. _

_maybe true mother there. _

_stone box hard. It hurt. steel rope in _

_the way. _

_can't see mother becuz 4 stones. _

_19 _

_dadddy atached first _

_momm atached scond _

_iNside reD and sLimy _

_whiTe and haRd _

_not true moM wheRe _

_dunno dadd _

_found mum again _

_whne atachd momMy _

_she moved no more _

_she screaming _

_why? _

_Jst want to b with her _

_4 _

_mom _

_where? _

_I mis yuo _

Even after her mother's death, Lisa continued to serve as a test subject for even more biological experiments. Unlike her fellow, more fortunate test subjects, Lisa was able to survive all of their tests, regardless of the potency of the implanted virus or parasite. This immunity earned the attention of Umbrella Corporation researchers Albert Wesker and William Birkin, who injected their formidable guinea pig with a specimen of the NE-α Parasite. To their astonishment, Lisa not only overcame the specimen, but also managed to absorb it and adapt its powers into her system. Ultimately, this was a major breakthrough for the Umbrella Corporation that would later go on to play a pivotal role in the engineering of the G-virus. After the G-virus was extracted from Lisa, the Umbrella Corporation lost interest in her. As time passed, Lisa's mutations and loneliness lead her to become increasingly violent. On one occasion, she brutally assaulted and killed three lab researchers. As Lisa was now seen a vestigial threat, Umbrella Corporation officials called for Lisa's destruction. Sometime in 1995, Lisa was supposedly slain in an undisclosed area of Spencer's estate. However, little did the Umbrella Corporation realize, the scale of experiments conducted on Lisa had left her impervious to almost all forms of battery, rendering her immune to all gunfire, to the extent an anti-tank missile had little to no effect on her aside from swatting her against a wall. Even with her death "confirmed" after three days of monitoring her vital signs, she was able to regain her life some time after being dumped in an unknown location. Lisa would go on lurking through the catacombs of Spencer's estate, secretly taking residency under a neglected, dilapidated cabin in the Courtyard. During the "Mansion Incident", various members of Raccoon City's Special Tactics and Rescue Service (S.T.A.R.S.) encountered Lisa while seeking refuge in the estate. After Jill Valentine solved the puzzle of Trevor's crypt, Jessica Trevor's skeleton was finally exposed. Lisa suddenly became emotionally crazed. After a bizarre display of closure, Lisa jumped into the abyss surrounding the altar. If jumping into the pit did not kill her, the S.T.A.R.S members believed that she would have most certainly died when the self destruct system blew up the mansion.

With Birkin obsessed with the G-Virus and Wesker doing his best to keep S.T.A.R.S away from anything related to Umbrella, the Queen Leech that had become part of Marcus' life had become one with him as a result of it falling off the lab station into his mouth when Marcus was assassinated and made him reborn. Out of hatred for Umbrella and Spencer, Marcus unleashed the T-Virus upon the mansion, labs and the training facility, turning everyone into zombies and unleashing chaos and confusion amongst the ranks, as well as allowing some of the experiments to escape into the forest, murdering Raccoon City civilians and forcing an intervention by S.T.A.R.S, resulting in the deaths of seven of the thirteen members that went in, including Megan's stepbrother Forest Speyer.

"Surely it would be safer to wait things out in the police station." Megan said to Doug as they carefully headed north. Doug just laughed.

"No, it's probably the second worst place to be after the hospital." He told her. "If the zombies and lickers don't get you, the Chief will." He was right. Doug was lucky that Chief Irons had let him roam free after he cruelly murdered Ed in the police station library, and any attempt to go back after the siege of the previous day that left David Ford and countless others dead, with the few remaining survivors barricaded in the East side tight, chances of survival in somewhere as infested as the police station was nothing short of nil, with anyone thinking of heading there branded as suicidal. This was further made clear by all the survivors who had run there in the first place and then joined the ranks of the undead, and all the weapons being scattered with those lucky enough to find a machine gun or a high powered shotgun left low on ammunition. There was also no telling if that creature that ambushed Jill and killed Brad was still there, although it still confused Doug even now as to why it had just given the survivors at that window a stare before walking away. He hoped to God, if there was one, that he wouldn't encounter that 'thing' ever again, in the event that he decided to change whatever mind it had and destroy Doug and his former colleagues who may be hiding in the parts of the police station he hadn't explored. That is of course, if they were still alive…

By the late afternoon of the 28th, Raccoon City had become a ghost town. Those who had survived this far had firmly barricaded themselves in to whatever building they had found themselves in, hoping that the Army or another branch of the armed forces would come to their rescue with helicopters and trucks and maybe a few tanks. But Doug and Megan's minds worked differently to the hapless civilians of what used to be Raccoon City. They knew help wasn't coming. They were going to have to save themselves, and if they couldn't get to safety, at least go down with a bang. They thought that going out in a blaze of fury was going to happen as they reached a garage on Southgate Drive, a wide street that had two lanes on either side of the road, with a narrow central reservation in the middle that had a hedgerow growing in it that provided a beautiful collection of colourful flowers during the summer. Something that Doug would regularly be distracted by as he went about his patrols. As with the majority of the city by this point, the fires burned in the nearby buildings with smoke billowing into the air, and cars crashed into lampposts with their bodywork and chassis twisted beyond repair. Some of them with their owners' bodies flung through the windshields and various body parts twisted in grotesque ways or missing altogether. A police car was one of the cars involved in one of these pileups, although not as badly damaged as the rest of the automobiles in the immediate area. It looked like it was in a drivable condition, only the passenger side door was missing and a body was sitting limp and lifeless in the front passenger seat. He hadn't been touched by anybody, so it was immediately assumed that the crash had killed him, and killed him recently. Doug approached slowly while Megan kept her gun pointed at the police officer in the car. There was no sign of life.

"Did you know him?" Megan asked.

"Yeah." Doug replied sadly. "That was Tim from the same traffic unit as me. Poor guy only started here just after the guys got back from the mountains." On the officer's person was a handgun, but it wasn't a standard Beretta 92 commonly carried by the other officers on the force. It was one of the S.T.A.R.S handguns, customised to the owner's personal tastes after they had received it. They were the S.T.A.R.S equivalent of dog tags, and the members of Alpha Team and the two survivors of Bravo Team had done their best to recover the handguns from their dead comrades. The only two handguns not to be accounted for during the whole investigation belonged to Joseph Frost, as his body was believed to still be in the mountains and since Alpha Team was too busy running away from its attackers at the time, there was no chance of recovering the gun. The second unaccounted for gun belonged to Edward Dewey, but unlike the other deceased members of Bravo Team, his body and his handgun were never found.

The Samurai Edge was a custom made version of the 9mm Beretta 92F created for S.T.A.R.S. It was sold in Kendo's Gun Shop, owned by Robert Kendo, and designed/created by his brother Joseph. It was equipped as a standard handgun by all S.T.A.R.S members. First commissioned in December of 1996, the Samurai Edge was built on the request of the R.P.D during the formation of the S.T.A.R.S unit. the Samurai Edge was built under a very strict set of requirements:

It had to be chambered for the same 9mm Luger cartridge as the regular R.P.D's standard issue Beretta 92F.

It had to have a magazine capacity of at least 13 rounds.

It had to have fixed sights and dotted posts.

It had to be capable of producing at least a 2 inch grouping within 25 yards. with no variation after 3,000 rounds.

It had to be capable of double-action fire.

It had to be ambidextrous.

When unloaded, its weight could not exceed 35 ounces.

After almost a year of experiments and trials; Chief Irons approved the Samurai Edge concept in February of 1998. The prototypes were tested by certain S.T.A.R.S. members, namely Chris Redfield, Jill Valentine, Barry Burton, and Albert Wesker. After receiving a few further adjustments, the completed Samurai Edge was first issued in June. The final version of the Samurai Edge hosted a wide range of features not present on the standard 92. The grip panes were enlarged and extended below the magazine foot, and consisted of two panels; the outer being made of wood, while the inner was synthetic. This grip design also required replacing the hammer spring cap (which normally would have a lanyard ring on the end). Further modifications include a heavier Brigadier slide that allowed it to withstand the use of higher pressure rounds, target sights, an extended slide catch, and a stainless steel barrel. Kendo also emblazoned each pistol with the S.T.A.R.S. logo, placed upon the left side of the slide below the ejection port and on a medallion in the centre of each grip panel. Each member was allowed to add their own personal touch to the handgun, giving it a unique twist on the design that really set it apart from other handguns issued to special tactics operatives.

Chris' Samurai Edge had been upgraded with a silver trigger, in addition to minor internal modifications to make it a competition-capable weapon, such as a medium-weight slide and adjusted trigger pull. Similarly, Jill's Samurai Edge has been upgraded with a silver trigger and magazine, a standard sized slide-stop lever, and the logo on the grip is a much brighter shade of blue. Barry Burton had a heavily customized version of the Samurai Edge. It fired .40 S&W calibre bullets in a 3 round burst fire mode and featured a longer barrel and compensator for increased accuracy and stability. Albert Wesker's weapon was the most heavily modified Samurai Edge, with the exception of the Barry Model. Wesker's Samurai Edge has the lower frame and takedown lever replaced with Inox (stainless steel) parts, in addition to a skeleton hammer and Brigadier sights. Wesker's handgun also featured an integrated Vertec style accessory rail on the bottom of the frame, as well as a beaver tail horn- a feature that was introduced on the 92 platform during the design stages of the 92 Combat that was to be issued to Spec Ops members, but never put into production.

Twelve of these guns were made at first, one for each enlisted member of S.T.A.R.S, with Rebecca Chambers acquiring hers when she joined. Each model had a unique serial number beginning with _S_, which stood for S.T.A.R.S and the initials of the first and last names of the user it was given to. Chris Redfield's began with _SCR _and a six digit number, while similarly Richard Aiken's was _SRA_ and Wesker's _SAW_. Doug already had Brad's gun that had its serial number beginning with _SBV_, so this one was obviously different. Knowing all about the serial numbers, Doug checked the gun. The serial number was _SFS25586B_: Forest Speyer's. While Megan's back was turned, Doug put it in the thigh holster that was part of his uniform, while the Brad model was kept in the hip holster that he had to take from the dead officer. They looked around their current position, thinking of a way to get out of the city alive. Doug's plans that he had drawn up in his head that morning were still embedded in his mind.

"Which plan do you like the sound of?" He asked Megan as she pulled Tim's body out of the car and searched for the keys. "Shall we head for the train station and make an attempt at driving out of here, or shall we head for the suburbs where it's a little more quiet and spaced out, and make an escape out the south-east of the city?" Megan tried to start the car, but the engine would not turn over. She got out and rested her chin on top of the car.

"Second one if it's a lot more spread out." She replied positively. "With everything going on in downtown I'm starting to feel a little claustrophobic." She then felt her stomach begin to rumble. "Is there anywhere we can get some food? I haven't eaten properly for about three days" Doug's sense of logic kicked in. If they were going to eat and drink, it had to be from sealed packets. A petrol station was about half a mile north of where they were, completely in the wrong direction for where their target destination, but it was the only place nearby that would satisfy their cravings, and there could be some items in there that could prove useful. Megan detached the scope from her rifle, as the iron sights enabled it to be used effectively in the position the two of them were in, much like the Springfield rifles provided to American troops during the Second World War. Finding nothing else of use in the police car, they quickly headed north, constantly checking for danger.

From the outside, the crashed cars and leaking fuel pumps made the small building appear to be devoid of anything of use. Luckily for them, the door was unlocked and there was still a lot in the petrol station for them to salvage. Doug and Megan grabbed chocolate bars and other sugary snacks and began to eat. In here they managed to catch a chance to sit down an rest for a little while. Three small aisles were present in the building: The right hand wall displayed car care products, with most of them on the floor, magazines were immediately to the right as they walked in and the middle two rows filled with sweets, crisps, drinks and other snacks while behind the counter that they sat on was a wide selection of tobacco products, hard liquor and lighters. Doug pulled a Zippo lighter off the bottom shelf and stuffed it into his pocket, telling Megan that it might come in handy.

"Isn't that looting?" she asked. Doug laughed and mused that there were no laws in this city anymore as there was no one around to enforce them except for him.

"I know this might seem a stupid question at first, but what exactly did you do?" Megan asked, wanting to get to know Doug a little more. "That's not an R.P.D uniform you see every day." Doug sipped on a bottle of water and explained how he was a regular traffic officer that 'upgraded' to becoming a member of the Select Police Force, Raccoon City's S.T.A.R.S replacement, a long story that led him to ask Megan what she used to do.

"Believe it or not, I was a school teacher. I had just started my second year of teaching at Raccoon City High. I graduated from the University of Colorado in Denver three years ago and did my teacher training course as soon as I graduated. It was never the career I wanted to do though. Since my dad married Forest's mom all I wanted to do was do what Forest did and become a cop, but I thought it best to get a degree in case I couldn't get accepted as an officer. Made a lot more through teaching too."

"I did a history degree at Raccoon City University" Doug explained, finding common ground. "Although I'm the opposite to what you want to do. I wanted to be a teacher, I even did the teacher training course, but I just couldn't get a placement anywhere. So I joined the R.P.D and discovered I was actually good at what I do. Maybe not good enough though- I failed to get into S.T.A.R.S twice." When asked how long he had been an officer for, Doug had a good think. "Well, I'm twenty three now, and I joined when I was twenty one, so two years. Doesn't seem that long when I think about it. I got lucky and was able to do my teacher training in conjunction with my degree, allowing me to get straight into work once I was finished, or so I thought." He stood up and picked up a small torch that had fallen on the floor, and realised it fit perfectly in a small loop on his belt. He parked himself back on the counter and looked at Megan who was busy poking and prodding a bag of crisps she couldn't finish.

"Did you have any family in town besides Forest?" He asked, wondering if there was anybody else that could potentially still be alive. Megan just shook her head.

"Dad and Lisa live in Aspen, and I haven't been with a guy for about a year, so they're still safe." She threw the crisps aside as she was completely full from the eating binge and sat cross legged on the counter. Doug got up again and looked out of the window, pulling apart the blinds slightly so he wasn't seen by any passing zombies.

"My parents live in Colorado Springs, and I have an older sister and a brother-in-law in Boulder. I got a three year old nephew that idolises me because I'm a cop... I just hope I can see him again..." He hung his head. The decision to remain behind had bit him back hard. Megan headed over to him and put a hand on his shoulder.

"You will" she said in a comforting tone. "I'll help make that a possibility in any way I can." Doug was able to manage a smile. She was helping just by making him feel better and maintaining a cool head in an environment that Doug and other police officers before him were beginning to lose theirs. They grabbed their weapons and decided to get a move on for the suburbs of town, where it was believed it would be a little bit safer. It was a massive risk, but for them it was better than sitting in a zombie infested building waiting to die.

They stepped outside, the cool breeze blowing any debris around on the floor, and headed out onto the main road. They had to head in an easterly direction, as that's where the the main suburbs were, although there were residential areas in the south of the city too. However, the suburbs in the east were more spread out and slightly better off than those in the south, as well as there being a main road out of town nearby that was much easier to get to from those suburbs than it was to get to the interstate in the south of the city. There was only one down side to this plan: Doug did not know that area as well as he knew the rest of the city. He grew up in the south in a middle class neighbourhood close to Richard Aiken, and hardly ever went there on patrols. His only hope was to find someone still alive out there that knew their way around, not caring about the embarrassment that may ensure if he had to ask a lone civilian which way to go. As they ran out onto the street, it happened again...

It appeared in front of them from nowhere, landing on Tim's patrol car and crushing it. It was about eight feet tall and from the way it destroyed Tim's car it must have weighed over a metric ton. It stepped down off the car as Tim started to rise with a groan. The beast looked down at Tim and picked him up by the head, and was able to crush the recently risen police officer's head like it was the bag of crisps Megan had been eating in the petrol station. What was left of Tim's blood rained down onto the tarmac and the body just dropped while the remains of the head were thrown elsewhere. Megan raised her hunting rifle, but it was immediately batted down by Doug, knowing that if they wanted to prolong their lives, they shouldn't bother shooting. Thinking instinctively, Megan ran and hid behind another crashed car while Doug stood where he was. He was paralysed with fear at what he was seeing for the second time...

It was the same thing that killed Brad...

The monster edged closer, its footsteps massive echoing stomps on the tarmac. Doug just stared it down and swallowed hard, but his throat was so dry it made no difference. In fact, to him it felt like he was swallowing glass. The monster was now looking down on Doug, and saw the MP5 in his hands. It was snatched from Doug's hands and the gun snapped in half with superhuman strength before being thrown away. The monster looked down on Doug once more, before nodding with a grunt and began to walk away, with that same word being spoken once more:

"S.T.A.R.S"

When the monster had cleared the area, Doug just fell to his knees and exhaled heavily. Megan saw what had happened and sprinted over to him to help him up.  
"What the _hell _was that thing?" she asked, putting a hand on each of Doug's shoulders and looking down the street 'Mr X' as she called it had walked down. Doug was still breathing heavily and he looked a little pale, before emptying the contents of his stomach all over the road, a result of the fear that had been put into him by his encounter with that monster.

"That's the second time today I've seen that thing" He told her, wiping his mouth with his sleeve. "And that's the second time today it's let me live." Megan helped him to his feet and Doug staggered around before vomiting once more. "This way" he pointed, which was pretty much the same direction 'Mr X' had headed off in. As they headed down the side street with weapons in hand, there was a massive explosion behind them. The petrol station they had just sought refuge in to eat and rest had exploded, and two people were seen running in the opposite direction to where the station used to stand before their image was obscured by the smoke and flames. Doug and Megan quickly turned round and headed for the open area of the wide street ahead of them: Raccoon Street.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

September 28th- 1355:

There was a tram line running through the centre of Raccoon Street, similar to the ones in San Francisco. The road was very open and the amount of carnage out here compared to the rest of the city was almost non existent. The flames and smoke from the petrol station fire burned behind them, with the smell of burning petrol filling the air, but not completely masking the smell of rotten flesh and decay. Raccoon Street also had a subway line running underneath it, but using that to reach the station in the suburbs was not just risky, but down right suicidal. As this part of town was a lot more open with fewer points of ambush, it seemed the best place for them to go. Add to this 'Mr X' wasn't in the immediate area, they felt safe for the first time in days.

"It all seems very quiet here" Megan observed, looking around. Doug bent down on one knee to tie his shoelace.

"Yeah, much quieter than everywhere else." He felt a sharp pain in the tip of his finger. "Ow!" He exclaimed. Looking down he saw that there was a splinter embedded in his finger tip. "Must have been from the rose bush" he thought. He then noticed a pharmacy about twenty yards up the road and couldn't believe his luck. "We'll head in there" he pointed. "We can't stay out in the open too long. We'll be spotted." They climbed in through a smashed window, as the door had been boarded up, and Doug immediately searched the pharmacy for what he needed. While the the petrol station had remained relatively intact, this pharmacy was a complete wreck, as most of the racks that displayed various products had been upended and most of the stock was on the floor. After a thorough search, underneath a packet of condoms, Doug found exactly what he was looking for: A pair of tweezers. He removed his gloves, a strange feeling going through his hands as these gloves had been on for a few days now and began to remove all the splinters from his hands and arms, as well as a couple that had been lodged in his cheek. Doug had taken precautions with this, even going as far as to sterilise the tweezers with his lighter to make sure any infection was killed off. A quick cleanse with an alcohol wipe and he was ready to go once more, putting his gloves back on and stepping back into the open, ready to continue their quest to the suburbs and then to the open road.

Ahead was one of Racoon City's many tram turntables, with a pickup sitting on it. It looked like this would be the perfect mode of transport to take. It looked like it was in a serviceable condition. Doug knew a little bit about cars and if the keys were in the ignition it would be a simple case of starting it up and driving off, but he knew that in real life, things were _never_ that easy. As they approached the pickup, a gunshot rang out, causing them to duck. Doug and Megan immediately ducked behind the pickup and pointed their guns at the tall buildings that lined this wide street.

"You see him?" Doug asked. Megan popped her head up over the bonnet and another shot rang out, this one embedding itself in the bonnet lid. She missed being hit by a whisker, and when she had taken shelter, Doug popped up behind the back of the pickup and fired three shots at the only open window.

"Hey!" A voice called from the second floor. "Don't shoot, I saw the uniform and thought you were another one of them!" Doug kept his handgun trained on the window. It was an American man with short black hair, or so they could tell from where they were. It appeared that he was sheltering in the Warren Hotel, one of Raccoon City's most exclusive hotels, and it appeared that he was trying to defend this building. Doug told him to stay where he was as they were heading up. They pushed the front door open, with trolleys and chairs used to reinforce it sliding across the carpet. They needed to get to the second floor, and luckily the lift was still working, albeit completely drenched in blood, with a puddle of it on the floor. As they stepped out on the second floor, they noticed their bloody footprints leading out, and those of someone else's boots that led to the room the sniper was in. Megan pounded on the door.

"Who is that?" A muffled voice called from the other side of the thick wooden door

"The girl and the cop" She replied. There was a shuffling around inside the hotel room before the door opened.

"Come in, quickly. This place is crawling with those things" He showed them inside, the room full of food and water supplies and a large case of sniper ammunition. Doug put his hand in and noticed a whole clip of .22 rounds than he showed to Megan, who nodded, knowing that these rounds would fit her rifle.

"There's plenty of rifle ammo in there to go round" The sniper laughed, wearing a black kevlar jacket, a green rolled up shirt and grey combat trousers with black knee pads and boots. His AWP sniper rifle was leaning next to the open window as well as an M4 assault rifle lying on the double bed that was in the centre of the room and a couple of handguns sitting on the bedside table, complete with ammunition boxes. "Sorry for taking that shot. It's becoming a force of habit." Doug gave the M4 a check. It was a lot heavier than guns he had been using. He checked the iron sights and put it back on the double bed, before noticing a CD player that was playing a tune he recognised.

"That's an Eagles CD I took from that record store on Flower Street, the music is relaxing and it keeps my sanity. Although those guys have no idea what's happening out here.

"I'm a CCR man myself" Doug laughed as he took a brief listen to 'Tequila Sunrise' before placing the headphones back on the table before steering the conversation back to the topic at hand. "Why are you even in here?" He asked. "I thought you where here to help with the evacuation of the civilians." The sniper laughed and took a seat on the arm of an armchair that was in the room.

"We were" He began. "I got a few together and took them to the outskirts of town using that pickup out the front. They're out there with a couple of the guys from my group. I came back here with Russell but he got killed, so I ran in here and dug myself in, waiting for the right time to head for the suburbs again. While _our_ mission was to rescue the civilians, our superiors have been charged with something else. I took this from the leader of one of the Alpha Platoon guys." He showed them the same piece of paper that Doug had on him. The one telling the supervisors and team leaders to allow the teams to fall victim to whatever was going on and save themselves.

"I knew it" Doug sighed. "This whole incident is one massive cover up. Umbrella has its head up the asses of everyone with authority. They could say one of their guys swam the Pacific and the people of the world would believe them." Megan's head was elsewhere. She was standing outside the room to watch for anything creeping up on them in the bloodied and littered hallway. Now Doug and his new soldier friend knew the truth about what had happened to Raccoon City, they were the least safe they had been. They now knew too much, and if word got out that they knew what they knew, Umbrella would no doubt be after them. Even now the executives to this faceless corporation would be writing up some story as to how all the people of Raccoon City died and there was a very good chance the people would believe them. As they looked out the window once more, they saw 'Mr X walking up the road, heading towards the St Michael Clock Tower, about a mile from their current position. And when watching 'Mr X' go about his business with some intelligence, it was in that hotel room that Doug realised what was going on. His mind flashed back to that morning when Brad was brutally murdered and the single word the monster said:

"S.T.A.R.S"

It wasn't after him or anybody else. It was after the surviving S.T.A.R.S members. Umbrella had created this 'thing' to silence the survivors of the Arklay Mansion Incident. It now all made perfect sense as to why it had left him alone.

"I've seen it before too" The U.B.C.S soldier added as the monster walked away. "Just not up close and personal like you have." He then ducked down behind the window since someone was coming the opposite way, completely oblivious to the monster that had just passed him. The soldier grabbed his rifle and loaded a new shell before taking aim. "Just a little over to the right... Thank you very much..." There was a loud bang that echoed through the silent streets as the bullet ripped its way through the man's head. The shell was ejected, ready for the next round to meet its unfortunate target. Doug looked at the body out on the street, dressed in the same attire as the sniper with his M4 lying beside him.

"What the hell did you do that for?" Doug said angrily. "He was alive, and one of yours!" The sniper pointed at the piece of paper on the table.

"He's a supervisor" He explained. "He's out to kill all of us. I'm doing those of us who are left a favour." When those words were spoken, Doug immediately understood. The U.B.C.S was in the same position as the R.P.D- They were being hunted by their superiors and they were being scattered and left to die in the city. "You need to get out of this building, officer" The soldier warned. "Get to the suburbs, help the two other guys out there get the civilians we rescued out of there." the sniper handed Doug the keys to the pickup. "They're on Magdalene Road. The safest route is to keep heading east along Raccoon Street, north on Charleston then East on Sheldon. Magdalene Road will be just past Chestnut Avenue... But you didn't need me to tell you that." Doug took the keys and didn't bother to argue. He thanked the soldier, Matt, and headed with Megan outside. The pickup started first time and they used it to get to where they needed to in just under an hour, driving past isolated pockets of the undead and through failed R.P.D barricades.

September 28th- 1945:

In the early evening, they finally arrived where they needed to get to: The suburbs. However, they had not arrived on Magdalene Road. They were on Rose St, a similar road, but due to a wrecked tanker in front of them, they were forced to turn up Rose St and dig in there. The pickup was parked on the driveway of a house and the pair got out. Megan smiled as she believed Doug was right. It was quiet, peaceful, and with the exception of the wrecked tanker everything seemed fine out here, save for the boarded up windows and doors of the houses. Doug drew his gun and headed for the door, gingerly trying the handle. The door slowly creaked open and they stepped inside. Straight ahead was the kitchen with the living room immediately to the right. The lights were on within the house while most of the others on the street were off, which gave the pair hope that someone was inside.

"I'll check upstairs, you search down here." Doug whispered. Megan placed her rifle by the door and began to search. Doug headed upstairs, where none of the lights seemed to be working. He held his torch in his right hand pointing forwards while he crossed his left hand that held his gun over the top, a technique that allowed aiming stability while being able to search with his light. The houses in this area of town were a little bit larger than those in the south of the city, most of them two storey compared to the bungalows of the south. It must have been a rather nice neighbourhood before all the trouble began, and if it was true, the main road that would be the pair's ticket to freedom was nearby. At the top of the stairs there were four rooms that Doug could enter: The bathroom was to the left, but the door was locked. Either someone was in there and alive or they had gone in there to hide from something. Worse yet, they could have been infected and been placed in there to protect them from the rest of the family. Putting his ear to the door Doug couldn't hear anything on the other side, so he automatically assumed that what was on the other side of the door was dead. The master bedroom with a large double bed and a layout similar to Matt's hotel room was also empty, with Doug even going as far as to check the massive wardrobes and the airing cupboard for anything of use. As he closed the airing cupboard, he heard a scream and a gunshot from downstairs. Running as fast as he could down the stairs he could hear sounds of a struggle coming from the dining room. Megan was on the floor with a single zombie on top of her, with Megan's hands on its shoulders desperately trying to push it away. Doug felt the need to protect and serve come to him and he pulled the zombie off Megan and holding its head back with his forearm to stop it from biting. He drew his knife and violently jammed it into the zombie's throat and slicing across to sever the windpipe and hopefully kill it. He let the creature drop to the floor and to make sure it was in fact dead he put a bullet through its head. The zombie made one final gasp as its head rolled to one side. Doug offered his hand to Megan.

"Are you alright? Did it get you?" he asked. He pulled Megan to her feet and ended up with her arms wrapped around him as she cried with relief. She was also beginning to feel the pinch, having repressed all the stress and anxiety of the last few days, as well as being in a similar position as the one Forest had been in when he died.

"Shh" Doug said quietly and calmly. "Everything's okay" He pulled away and looked Megan in the eyes. "Be honest with me Megan: Did it get you?" Megan shook her head and Doug sat her down in an armchair in front of the television that was not working to calm down. As he did so, he heard movement on the stairs. Aiming his gun at the door he saw a female figure in the dim light. She was wearing a beige coloured sweater with a loose turtleneck and blue jeans with brown casual shoes. He dark blonde hair was shoulder length and scruffy, probably due to sleeping rough the last few nights. Doug's handgun was trained on her and as she saw Doug she recoiled in fear and begged him not to shoot her. Doug slowly lowered his gun as he recognised this woman. It was Samantha Morrison, a former girlfriend and classmate of Doug's from Raccoon City High. Doug invited her into the living room where she was introduced to Megan before informing the pair that someone else was in the house: Doug went upstairs with Samantha to the bathroom that they were hiding in to find a small boy, about nine years old, sleeping on the floor.

"His mother was working at the warehouse on Brookmere Road when the R.P.D evacuated her to Stoneville" she quietly explained. "His father hasn't been seen since" Doug explained that he had evacuated a large group of civilians from that warehouse a few days before and that a woman in that group was asking about her son. If he had any way of contacting the outside world, he'd find out, but right now there was nothing he could do except get the two of them out of there. Samantha woke the boy up and they headed downstairs, Megan looked after the boy while Samantha allowed Doug to help her put something together to eat.

"I know we sort of ended on the wrong terms, Sam" Doug told her, with Samantha quickly scolding him about calling her 'Sam'. "But right now the biggest priority for us is getting out of here. Mind if we bunk here tonight? First thing in the morning we need to complete another objective then we can get out of here. Apparently there's another group of civilians a little further along that are being protected by the U.B.C.S and they are, along with you, mine and Megan's first priorities." Samantha turned down the heat on the hob and leaned against the counter with her arms folded.

"You always were married to your job, weren't you?" Doug was taken aback by this.

"Look, the only reason I'm still here is because I stayed behind to make sure the police station was evacuated and I had to leave in a manner that wasn't exactly intentional either. I should be out of town by now and drinking a nice cold beer in Stoneville, so you should count yourself lucky I'm here to help you two out, since you locked yourselves in the bathroom leaving me to take out that zombie in the dining room" He sighed as he realised he was being as bad as she was by having a hostile attitude. "Look, this isn't about my job. I don't exactly have one anymore. Hell, for all I know I'm the last cop alive in this city. I'm not asking for time to talk about us... All I'm asking is for the two of us to be co-operative until we can get out of here, then after that, you won't have to see me again." Samantha hung her head.

"Fine." She replied. "I guess in these sorts of circumstances bickering isn't going to get us anywhere."

That evening they had an improvised dinner from anything in sealed packets. There were some potatoes still in their packaging, some peas out of the freezer and some bacon was found in the fridge, and they hoped that if anything was present in the bacon would have been cooked out when it was fried. All noise and smells were contained within the house to prevent anything outside discovering they were in there. All the windows and doors were boarded up with the thick curtains drawn to try and prevent as little light escaping and in a couple of hours, the house was turned into a little fortress. Megan was upstairs in the small box room that overlooked the street, keeping an eye on things. If they hadn't seen what they had already seen, then this would be a normal night in Raccoon City, as these suburbs were always quiet. As they ate, the young boy seemed to be behaving as though nothing was wrong, although he wasn't saying a word. Doug was sat next to him, and for him, it was great to finally eat something that wasn't a savoury snack.

"Are you okay?" Doug asked the young boy, and the boy just nodded. "Scared?" The boy nodded again. Doug finished what was on his plate and looked at the boy as he curled up on the sofa they were sat on, with Megan and Samantha sitting in the two armchairs. It was now dark outside, and more rain was beginning to fall, but inside their little 'fortress', everything was beginning to feel a little safer.

"We're all in the same boat right now" Doug told the boy, trying to prevent him from feeling alone. "None of us know what's going on, we're all confused, tired and haven't slept properly for days... And none of us have the slightest clue as to where our friends and family are... But what we do know, is that we're not alone." The boy looked up at Doug and was able to give a tiny smile. Just the sight of Doug's uniform made him feel safer, as he was a police officer and the job of a police officer is to protect the people of the city, regardless of the situation. At around half nine, Samantha took the boy upstairs, while Megan headed for the front bedroom to watch over the street and give her some privacy, while Samantha had the master bedroom. Doug on the other hand decided to sleep downstairs on the sofa, in the event of anything breaking through, he could eliminate the threat quickly and give the people upstairs a chance at escape out the back, as a mattress had been placed out the master bedroom's window as a means of escape if the walking dead somehow got in through the front.

"So are you going to tell James about his mother or am I?" Samantha asked after coming downstairs from taking the boy to bed. Doug checked his two guns and put them in his holster.

"I'm not telling him anything, at least not until we're out of here" He told her as he lay back on the sofa with his hands behind his back. "And I don't want you to tell him anything either." Samantha was confused. "Because I don't want him to get his hopes up over a piece of information that could be completely inaccurate. We get him and the people the U.B.C.S have rescued out, then we tell him."

"And what if these U.B.C.S people are dead?" Samantha scoffed. "How much time would..."  
"We have to go to that road anyway" Doug told her. "It's the only way of getting to the road we need to use to escape." Samantha didn't see the point in arguing, and instead announced she was going to bed.

"Sam" Doug said as she began to head up the stairs, visible from where Doug was lying. She looked back at him with a look as if to say 'what?'. "Good night." Sam barely acknowledged him and began to climb the stairs to get some sleep. Before he knew it, Doug's eyes were closed, and he too began to sleep.

September 29th- 1455:

Doug awoke to the sound of shuffling from inside the house. Something fell to the floor and instantly he was on his feet and pointed his gun at whatever was moving. It was Megan.

"Easy" she laughed. "It's just me." Doug checked his watch.

"Shit!" He exclaimed. "We'd better get a move on!" Megan grabbed hold of him as he tried to get his things together.

"Shh!" She said quickly. "There's a whole group of them outside." Doug furrowed his brow at that statement.

"Why didn't you get me up if there's a whole load of them out there?" He asked her in a hushed voice.

"They're not really posing a threat" She replied before smiling. "Besides, you look so peaceful when you sleep." Samantha was standing in the doorway, and when he spotted her, Doug hoped that this was an attempt by Megan at lightening the situation they were in and she led him upstairs to her room where she showed him the group of about seven zombies, just standing there as if they were in some weird game of musical statues. The four of them gathered at the window, wondering what needs to be done.

"We need to cross the street to get to those houses' back gardens." Doug whispered. "If we go through those gardens at the back of those houses, then do the same on the next street, we'll be on Magdalene Road, where Matt told us to go." He then turned to his companion. "Take them out" he told her. Samantha asked him if he was crazy as the noise would alert more if there were any. "They're slow" Doug explained. "By the time more of them show up we'll be over those fences and on the next road." Megan took her rifle, and James covered his ears. Seven shots were fired, and all seven hit their intended targets in the head. Doug ordered everyone downstairs and out the front door, with Doug and Megan providing cover with their handguns, they ran across the street and down the side of a house to get to the back yard. Megan hopped over the low fence first and she and Samantha helped James over with Doug quickly following suit. They sprinted towards the next set of houses, with Megan and Doug forced to take out three zombies directly in front of them. They repeated the process they had done on Rose Street's back yards. It felt like they had been running for hours, rather than five minutes, and eventually they made it onto Magdalene Road, a road that appeared to be exactly the same as Rose Street, only that there were a few more cars there, and a bit more debris.

"Is this the place?" Megan asked. Doug looked at the street sign at the end of the road.

"Yep, this is the place." He acknowledged. "Matt's guys should be around here somewhere. He noticed that there were a couple of cars embedded in lamp posts, as well as a couple of other gems they could use to their advantage.

"Hey, a school bus" Megan pointed, and they headed for it. It looked to be in perfect working condition, and Doug ordered the others to stand back while he checked it out. There were a few bodies lying on it: One appeared to be the driver, evidenced by the fact he was slumped over the steering wheel with a nasty wound to the forehead, although it was strange given that the bust was in near mint condition. A couple of other bodies were spread out across the bus too, so Doug thought it best to take the keys and close the doors behind him. As he stepped out, he noticed a mint condition Ford Crown Victoria police patrol car parked on the kerb, again with the keys in it, and a shotgun in the boot. The door was open but the officer who was in charge of the vehicle must have just disappeared. Doug again gave an order, this time for everyone to fall in and stick close before realising that the car's megaphone was still working, just like the one he used to get Kevin and his new companions out of J's Bar when the whole mess began. He grabbed the mouthpiece and pressed the red button on the side, a short burst of static emitting from the speaker as he pressed it. Doug rested his right arm on the roof of the car as well as holding the mouthpiece with his left hand and faced up the road while giving his announcement.

"This is the Raccoon City Police Department" he began in an authoritative voice.

_Rather... What's left of it..._

"If any civilians are still inside your houses, please make your way to the school bus and patrol car out the front of number 3341. Be advised that due to the current situation, this will be the last evacuation transport out of the city. If you miss or refuse transport, then any escape will be down to you, as there are very few figures of authority left. You have ten minutes to bring yourselves, and your wallets, to the rally point."

_You dick! You're the last one! you might as well be honest with these people!_

"I will stress again: This will be the last, repeat _last_ evacuation transport by the R.P.D. After this, you will be on your own." He turned off the PA system, took the keys and closed the passenger side door. As he did so, he saw two men in a similar uniform to Matt exiting the front door of one of the houses carrying mean looking assault rifles, possibly the M4's bigger brother, the M16.

"Are you Matt's boys?" Doug asked as they greeted him with a handshake.

"Yes sir" one of them replied, a young gentleman with spiky brown hair. Dylan Macken, although everybody calls me Mac, this is my buddy Owen- We're from Matt's team. There's one more in the house with the civvies. That's Scott." Doug sent James and Samantha into the house before looking at Megan.

"So you wanted to be an R.P.D officer huh?" He asked. Megan just nodded, so Doug gave her a cheeky smile.

"Go and get some numbers. Find out how many people need evacuating." he told her. Megan grinned from ear to ear and ran towards the house while turned to the two U.B.C.S members.

"I'm going to need some info" Doug told them. "How long have these vehicles been here, and what's the threat assessment?" The two U.B.C.S operatives had a ponder.

"The bus was here since we got here on Sunday morning, the 27th. Not seen any movement from it... Come to think of it, we never really gave it a second thought" Mac explained, pointing at objects of interest. "The cop car came yesterday morning, and the cop driving it just got out and started running up the road towards the highway feeder road, which we thought was odd since we checked the fuel tank and it's filled to the top with gas, and the car's in perfect condition."  
"He was looking for a way out..." Doug thought aloud.

"And the threat level is relatively low, considering..." Owen added. "In fact, it's been so quiet we've been playing catch with the three kids that are in that house there. A police van came rushing down here yesterday morning too with its lights on. Looked like wherever it was heading to it was looking to get there quickly." It was still about a mile to the highway, but Doug knew exactly who was driving that van.

_They made it... Hah! They made it!_

Megan came out moments later, carrying a piece of paper with notes scribbled all over it.

"We've got twelve individuals inside the premises" She said in a professional tone. "four minors, six adults, Sam and myself, plus you and the three U.B.C.S operatives." That meant that the school bus would be the extraction vehicle. They needed to start preparing now, if the sun went down before they were ready, they'd have to finish the next morning and get out when it was daylight.

"We need that school bus preparing" Doug informed them. "get rid of the bodies, and do it discreetly, we don't want to frighten those kids." Owen and Mac nodded and began to get to work while Doug started rummaging through the police car. An extra magazine for a Beretta was found, when what he was really looking for was a clue as to who the police officer who abandoned it was and why he had decided to proceed on foot when the car would have done just fine. After a good search with Doug, Megan approached the bus, where Owen and Mac were removing a body by throwing it out the rear emergency exit.

"Okay, for starters, treat the bodies with respect. They may be dead and could be or have been zombies, but it doesn't mean you should treat them like pieces of crap" She said sternly as she had seen the way the bodies had been treated. Owen and Mac instantly had a look of regret on their faces. "Also, Doug has recommended that you go into one of these houses and look for a change of clothes. When you learn the truth about this, you're gonna want to keep your pasts more of a secret than I believe you already do." The two happily agreed. They were starting to smell and a change of clothes would be a nice thing for them.

It was a job that took them all afternoon, and using whatever tools were left lying around the house. The previous owners of the house had kept chickens in the back yard (chickens which had since disappeared and presumed eaten) so there was an large stock of chicken wire in the shed out the back. Using a nail gun that was also in the shed, the chicken wire was placed over the windows to add some protection, as they didn't know what the situation was to be like when they left. The police car was pretty much left alone, although Doug wanted to use it as his escape vehicle. He was either planning on escorting the school bus out of town or following it and using the police car's lights and sirens as a distraction if need be. By the time the bus was ready and supplies such as water and food loaded on board as well as a check to make sure everything of the bodies was disposed of, the sun had begun to set, and there would be no escape attempt today. They would have to wait until morning for their final attempt at getting to safety.

"Hey" Samantha said as the survivors settled down for their evening 'meal', a large collection of crisps and snacks that the U.B.C.S had liberated from a nearby convenience store and stocked up on, as well as plenty of bottled water. "I think I owe you an apology."

"What for?" Doug asked as he popped a biscuit into his mouth. Samantha sighed.

"Because of what you've done for these people. You were right about them being here and they are alive. We could have escaped this afternoon in that pickup you took but if we had done that these people would still be here and they would have just been left here to die, because I think that the government will be looking for a way to contain whatever has happened here, and I think this place will be bombed soon as a containment measure. I may have been chewing at you because you spent more time thinking about your job than you did spending time with me but now I'm actually beginning to understand why you do what you do. I overheard you talking to the soldiers, they said a police van came by here yesterday morning and you said police officers were on it... Why weren't you with them?" Doug closed his eyes briefly.

"It was never my intention to find any of you people" He said honestly. "I was supposed to follow those guys out once I had confirmed the building was empty... But you see..." He then told her the full story. The full story as to why his whole left side was covered in blood, why he was muddy, why the seams on his uniform had been torn in places and how he met Megan and Matt. After hearing his full story and having a chance to explain himself, Samantha had pretty much forgiven him for what she had called selfishness in the past, and the reason for their messy breakup.

"Even though you never intended to find us, you're still putting your own escape on hold to save us rather than yourself... When are you actually going to get yourself out of here?"

"Tomorrow, with you guys. I'm done now. After tomorrow I will no longer be a cop, the R.P.D will be no more." Samantha got up and headed upstairs to look after the children. As she was about to head through the door, she saw Megan, and had noticed their budding friendship throughout the course of the past two days.

"You hang on to him." She whispered. Megan was really confused.

"Oh, we're not..." She was stopped by the look on Samantha's face.

"He was far too good to me" Samantha continued. "He seems perfect for you."


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

September 29th- 2133:

Megan walked into the living room carrying a can of cold beer in each hand. Doug gave her a funny look.

"Yeah, sure, why not. I'm still on duty, but I doubt anyone is gonna call the cops. Oh wait!" he began sarcastically, "I AM the cops! It's not as if someone's going to see me and go 'hey! Call the po... Oh hang on...'. In fact, while we're at it, let's take up smoking as well. Not much point to clean living anymore." He opened his can of beer and took a large swig of it. "You know, if you close your eyes, it's as though the last week's events never happened, like everything is fine. David is still alive, Brad's head is one piece, I'm ticketing speeding drivers and living in my nice quiet apartment." Megan didn't know what to say, Doug's personality had begun to change. "I wonder how much over time pay I'll get? And the rent's due tomorrow... At least this month I have an excuse for it being late" he laughed to himself before drinking some more beer.

"Now you're starting to worry me" Megan told him as Doug slumped a little more into the sofa.

"Sorry" he sighed. "It's been a crazy week." Megan stood up and began to fumble with the magazine pouch on her belt that she had been fiddling with for days. Moaning at how it was constantly digging into her side.

"Look" Doug smiled as he stood up. "You're right handed, yeah?" He undid the velcro loop and moved it to her left hand side. "Put it on the opposite side, so when you shoot, you can keep your gun on the target and reload." He stood behind her and helped her to point the gun at the wall. He then told her to release the magazine and held the gun up while she reloaded.

"That makes everything so much easier" Megan laughed.

"It's one of the first things they teach you at the academy" Doug replied, before sitting down. Megan sat down next to him, wearing the same clothes she had been given by Kendo the previous morning. Doug made himself comfortable on the sofa and closed his eyes to get some sleep, while Megan rested her head on his shoulder. Doug didn't know anything about it. He was too far gone. All he wanted to do was sleep, and in this little fortress the U.B.C.S had created, they felt safe and slept without worrying what was outside.

September 30th- 1218:

Doug and Megan woke up to the sound of things being moved around.

"Time to leave" Mac informed them. "Time to get out of here." Doug couldn't believe it. He had overslept again. It was as if he was still a student and waking up on a neighbouring floor's kitchen table, as he had done when he was at R.C.U. Getting the hell out of here was his plan, and he needed to be around to conduct it.

"Okay" He told Mac. "Get everybody together, I'll be out in a second." He looked down at his left shoulder, confused as to why Megan was gone. She was coming down the stairs with the four children, accompanied by Samantha.

"Last one to the school bus is a rotten egg!" She teased as the children ran out the front door. They were quiet, but still playing along. Even the fifteen year old girl that was one of the 'minors'. James was another, and two more young children were in the group, as well as six adults. Unfortunately, none of them were related. Doug slowly got up, feeling the blood rush to his head as he stepped outside into another sunny day. As they began to load up the school bus, someone was spotted running up the road.

"Matt!" Owen exclaimed. "You made it!" Owen approached them and bent over panting with his hands on his knees.

"Yeah, but I have company. Those things will be with us soon. Do what you have to do and get the hell out of here." He told them. Doug hurried the last of the people onto the bus and told them to sit separate from each other, urging anybody to point out anything out of the ordinary.

_If they were infected, they would have shown signs of it by now _The voice inside his head told him. He couldn't risk it, not now. Not when they were so close. The chorus of the undead appeared to be growing closer, and it was time to make their move. After a check to make sure everybody carried their wallets upon them so they could begin setting themselves up in Stoneville when they arrived, the four U.B.C.S members and Doug had a meeting.

"Okay, your only instructions are to drive and not stop" Doug explained. "If you come across a road block. Stop and try to sort it out. Do not under any circumstances let anyone off that bus. You got that?" The U.B.C.S. Members nodded, now in a change of clothes they had taken from a nearby house. "Is this everyone? Good." Mac took the driver's seat while Owen and Matt sat immediately behind him. Doug and Scott stood in the street as the bus started its engine. As it did so, they saw the zombies coming.

"We must have made too much noise" Doug informed Scott, and told him to jump in the patrol car.

"What do you want us to do?" Matt called to them. Doug rolled down his window and leaned out.

"Just drive!" He shouted back. "I'll distract these guys for you!" Megan was then seen jumping off the bus as Doug turned on the lights to the patrol car and approached his wound down window.

"Don't go being some kind of hero now" She scolded. Doug just simply told her that these people needed all the time they could get since they didn't know what was blocking the road ahead and simply ordered her back on the bus. Megan ran back to it and jumped on, the doors closing behind her.

"Those zombies are gonna keep following us out of town" Doug said worriedly as he put on his seatbelt. "We're gonna have to lead them back towards the centre of the city and then make our getaway. The bus waited for the signal to go, and as the zombies got closer, Doug poked his gun out of his window and fired three shots into the air to get the zombies to follow him, with Scott leaning out of his window to shoot the people who were on the bus before them who had recently risen as zombies. The group following them picked up speed and started to get closer. Mac saw that as a cue and the bus started to move, while Doug turned on the lights and sirens before setting off on a slow crawl in first gear, letting the clutch take the car. The children sat at the back of the bus looked in horror as Doug turned off down a side street while the bus carried straight on.

"Sam!" James called to her. "Where's the policeman going?" Sam, Megan and Matt headed for the back of the bus and watched as the police cruiser turned left, with the zombies following.

"Mac, stop just here! We need to know if we're being followed!" Mac brought the bus to a very slow pace and when it was determined that the large group of about a hundred zombies had all followed the police car, they carried on their way to escape.

"What the hell does he think he's doing?" Megan thought aloud.

"Doing his job" Samantha sighed, and they both took their seats. The bus was well prepared for the drive that lay ahead. Four of the people on it were competent with firearms, they had food, water and military grade weapons, as well as a selection of books and board games to keep them occupied should they need to go somewhere other than Stoneville. More for the children than anything. The civilians on board were silent. They were just silently praying that they would get out of town in one piece. They felt safe, since the U.B.C.S had taken them to safety and kept them fed and watered, as well as doing a great job of looking after the children. The arrival of Doug and Megan cemented their determination to escape, and were promised an evacuation. Now, they were getting that evacuation. On a more open residential street, Mac was able to open the taps a little more, and gave the bus a burst of speed, going well over the speed limit for these roads.

"Aren't you going a little quick? Owen asked him.

"Nah" Mac laughed. "I won't get a ticket, the only cop in town is already occupied." The bus handled surprisingly well in the corners, probably due to the fact it wasn't fully laden like it would be on a school day, and with the lack of traffic, Mac was almost able to take a 'racing line' through the corners to keep his speed up.

"How much further to Downtown?" Scott asked, looking behind him every so often to make sure their stalkers were still there.

"Six miles" Doug replied, both hands on the wheel and keeping his eyes completely focused on the road ahead. "Although it'll be more of a zigzag affair since most of the roads are blocked with crashed cars." Scott reached for his belt and produced something that would keep those things following them occupied: A fragmentation grenade.

"Good idea" Doug praised him. "We'll head towards the clock tower and drop it out the window. Hopefully it'll take a few of them with it." They were currently driving along one of the main thoroughfares to Raccoon Street, where Matt had been hiding in the hotel. Although side streets were having to be taken as some of the streets were so littered with debris such as broken glass, something Doug didn't want to drive on in case the tires burst, and although he liked cars and knew his way around them, he wasn't too handy with a jack when he had hundreds of undead civilians breathing down his back.

"Shit... I think we may have attracted more of them." Scott said with concern as he looked out the back window.

"Highway 17- Right!" Mac exclaimed with glee as he slowed for a tight bend. The lights were on red, but he didn't really care. No police to watch him, and even if there was a camera on top that snapped red light runners, the city wasn't going to last long enough for the state government to issue him with a ticket. Running the lights and rounding a crashed car with the bus's poor turning circle, he floored it onto the highway, a single carriageway road which was used as a route to Stoneville before the interstates were built during President Eisenhower's tenure as president.

"Thanks for that information Mac" Megan said sarcastically. "But can we save the history lessons until AFTER we're out of here?" The bus picked up speed, now doing over fifty miles an hour. In his always wanting to crack a joke type of personality, Mac mentioned something quietly about a bomb being armed as he crossed the 50mph barrier. Samantha responded by giving him a crack... over the head. This wasn't the time for jokes. They couldn't get complacent now, even though the city limits were still three miles away. Once they passed the army barricades, they were free. Mac wanted to go faster, but he didn't feel safe going over 55mph with the children on board, and even though he was cracking jokes, it was either they all got out alive, or none of them got out alive. The road was dead straight from here, and the three miles to the city limits were quickly eaten up. As they approached the city limits, Mac braked hard. The US Army must have put up a barricade, but it wasn't even manned. Maybe they had just set it up and abandoned it. Most of the Army was in Kosovo after all...

"What's going on?" A middle aged civilian asked from his seat, after the bus had come to a complete stop. "Why have we stopped?" Mac opened the doors and the three U.B.C.S members got off, along with Megan.

"There's a blockade we need to clear to get out of the city" She explained, trying to keep everybody calm. We'll be moving in no time. Megan and Owen stood guard while Mac and Matt moved one of the barriers, which had been covered in barbed wire.

"We'd better leave this open so Doug can get his car through" Megan suggested, and they moved the bus through slowly. Once through, Mac floored it once more, and they were now free...

Doug was forced to take an alternative route. Instead of heading towards the clock tower, he had to take a left onto Warren Street. The group behind him had grown in size, and now he had trapped them about two hundred yards from the police station. He came to a stop just before the junction of Flower Street, close to where he first met Megan.

"God..." Matt gasped as he saw the chaos that was continuing. "It's all completely hopeless out here..."

"Yep.." Doug replied, and asked for the hand grenade. He was seeing his town for the last time. Twenty three years he has lived here, and now he was having to say goodbye to everything and everyone he ever knew. The police station's clock tower clearly visible from where they were. He checked his driver side wing mirror and rolled down the window. This had to be timed to perfection. He planned to cook the grenade so that it exploded at least two seconds after dropping it. Drop it to early and it wouldn't explode in the centre of the group. Drop it too late and he'd end up taking the car, and themselves, with it.

"That's an M67 frag grenade. The US Army uses it" Scott told him. "It's got a fuse time of four seconds... Do you even know how to use one of those things?" Doug rolled down the window and told Scott that if he had another one on him, he'd best equip it now. The zombies got closer and closer, to the point where they were almost breathing down upon them. Doug pulled the pin out, and so did Scott on his, and they hung their arms out the window. Doug out the left in his dominant hand, Scott on the right passenger side with his dominant hand.

"Ready?" Doug asked. Scott nodded. Doug moved the gearbox from neutral into drive, and they released the safety in unison, cooking the grenade...

"NOW!" He ordered, and as soon as the grenade was clear, Doug slammed his right foot down on the accelerator. There was a minute amount of wheel spin as the car pulled away due to it being an automatic and the clutch snapping in intantly. The grenades went off, taking out a sizeable amount of the undead, whilst also blowing the back window of the car out, and the glass leaving a nasty cut on the back of Doug's head, the blood tickling the back of his head as it trickled down his neck onto his uniform.

"Shit!" Scott exclaimed. "Are you alright?" Doug put his hand on the back of his head and noticed there was quite a bit of blood there.

"I've got more important things on my list of priorities right now to worry about a little cut on the back of my head. Just buckle up and hold on!" Scott was able to get a good look at the cut. It wasn't a small one. It was pretty nasty, but Doug was determined to get both of them to safety. If this was before the 27th, he would have simply headed for the police station, knowing Rebecca kept a whole stock of medical equipment within the S.T.A.R.S office, but he didn't want to know anymore. He had to get out of here. A beautifully executed power slide onto Flower Street left what was left of the zombies firmly out of his grasp. Knowing that Doug had eluded them for the last time, they turned and began to head towards the police station...

Scott was getting a lesson in why Doug was the best driver within the R.P.D. It was creepy to watch, but Doug's head twitched along with his eyes as he scanned the road ahead for hazards, as well as checking his mirrors. He was losing blood pretty quickly, and looked to be in a lot of pain, as evidenced by the grimacing and the look in his eyes. At the next intersection with Good Street, Doug took another hard right.

"Hey, could you check the glove box?" Scott opened it.

"There's a first aid kit inside" he observed.

"See if there's anything in there to stop the bleeding." Scott rummaged around in the kit and the glove box itself and found a S.T.A.R.S sweatband that was the only thing that could really be used right now, as trying to pick out the glass from the back of Doug's head and apply a bandage while he was driving wasn't really a good idea. As he attempted to apply pressure, Scott grimaced in pain and briefly lost control, nearly slamming into a lamp post.

"I'll hang on" He grimaced. "We'll soon be out..."

September 30th- 1650:

The other survivors had found a lay by at the side of Highway 17 at the top of a hill overlooking the city, roughy ten miles from the Army erected barricade. The road was quite twisty and was reported to be dangerous just past their position, while the road back into down still had its twist and turns, just not as twisty or dangerous and provided the once spectacular view of the city. The lay by was often used as an observation point, and the lay by could have easily been used as a car park. It was the last image of Raccoon City's large tourist industry.

"I'm not leaving this spot until that cop car comes over the crest of that hill" The middle aged survivor announced. Megan was standing to one side of him, while Mac stood on the other side holding his rifle.

"Yeah, me neither" She told him, with Mac also agreeing. Mac climbed back onto the bus to make sure the children were okay. The teenage survivor and Samantha were doing a great job of keeping them occupied while other survivors relished in the smell of the fresh air, and not the smell of decaying corpses that had filled the streets of downtown Raccoon City.

"I hope that cop shows up so I can thank him for what he's done along with those other guys" He said sadly, a tear running down his cheek as he saw the fires burning across his home town, with the people who once inhabited it- police officers, paramedics, firemen, lawyers, accountants and housewives amongst the thousands of others who wandered the streets aimlessly.

"Me too Stephen" she replied. I've only known him a couple of days, but it feels like I've known him forever. I'm glad I met him, even if we met in the weirdest of circumstances." She briefly explained their meeting and how he helped her to find safety. "Even though he's the only cop left, he's still helping people, even if it means he could get killed..." Samantha appeared and stood with Megan as Stephen left for a lie down.

"Still nothing? He's been gone far too long... But I think we all know that..." Megan put her head in her hands and felt herself beginning to cry. Samantha put her arm around her and tried to comfort her. "I'm sorry... I didn't mean what you thought..."  
"It's not that" She said, wiping away a tear. "It's just everything I've been through in the last couple of months. You know the S.T.A.R.S team that went out to the Arklay Mountains a couple of months ago? I lost my brother out there, and now all this..." Samantha didn't know what to say, so she just held Megan for a while while she cried. Samantha couldn't hold back the tears either. She may have had a messy break up with Doug, but she was worried sick about him. He had been gone far too long. It had been nearly four hours.

Twenty minutes later. Megan was sat on the long nosed bonnet of the bus, watching Raccoon City. The sun had begun to set, and once it was behind the Arklay Mountains, the sky would be a dark orange. Once the sky had turn from blue to orange, she knew time would be running out for Doug... That is if he was still alive... Megan loved the sunsets in this part of the country, especially at this time of night when the sky was this kind of blue-orange. The children were getting some exercise with the U.B.C.S, the adults were talking on the bus and Megan just couldn't do any of that. She was waiting for her friend to show up.

That was when she heard something and thought she saw something ahead. It sounded like an engine, and what she saw looked like red and blue flashing lights. She stood on the bonnet for a better view. And what she thought she saw was proved to be real.

"They're here!" She called out. Everyone gathered near the bus to get a look as the police car came over the crest of the hill at almost top speed, slamming its brakes on as it got near it before doing a U-turn and parking up next to the evacuation transport, facing back towards Raccoon City. Scott got out the passenger seat first, while Doug was slower to get out. The back of his head was a dark red, there was blood running down the side of his face and he looked to be in a lot of pain.

"Glad to see you in one piece" Mac and the other U.B.C.S members smiled, shaking hands and congratulating Scott.

"It's him you need to be worried about" he pointed at Doug, who was sitting on the bonnet of the patrol car. Stephen and Megan ran over to him.

"What the hell happened?" She asked.

"An explosion near the police station blew out the rear window" Scott explained. "The glass has cut him pretty bad." Scott reached back into the car and pulled out the first aid kit.  
"Is anyone a doctor?" Scott asked. Luckily, Stephen was a navy medic in Vietnam, working on the aircraft carriers. Using the tweezers contained in the medical kit, Stephen was able to pull out the larger pieces of glass, which was designed in such a way that it shattered into lots of large pieces rather than even more smaller pieces, so that small slivers of glass wouldn't get into head wounds such as Doug's. Doug was in a lot of pain, and looked in a state of shock. Stephen applied the bandage to his head to contain the bleeding and they moved him to the bus.

"We'll put him on the back seat so he has somewhere to rest" Stephen explained. The U.B.C.S soldiers placed him on the back seat and used a pile of jackets and anything soft they had taken from the house in the event of a stop over to keep him comfortable, as well as placing a picnic blanket over the top of him. They really had thought of everything. Mac later went to the police car to inspect the damage and began cleaning it up. During his inspection of the vehicle, he came across something truly terrifying.

"Yo Scott!" he called. "Check this out man!" Scott poked his head into the back of the car and noticed something embedded in the back of Doug's headrest. It was a large piece of glass, very sharp to the touch and it missed the back of Doug's head by inches. Neither soldier could believe it. He came so close to death once again but escaped it, although they agreed that no one should know about it. They were free now, it didn't matter anymore.

With Doug in the state he was in no one particularly wanted to get on the move, even though Doug probably needed stitches in the back of his head. Instead they set up a camp fire to keep them warm and ate the last of the food they had, with enough left over for breakfast if they needed it. They were a close knit community, and it was admirable that they had managed to keep calm and collected in that kind of situation, waiting for transport that never came, and instead having to put their lives in the hands of a single police officer and some hired mercenaries from the antagonistic corporation that started this in the first place.

October 1st, 0557:

Doug groaned as he rolled his head to one side. Megan got up from a nearby seat, having been up all night to watch over him, despite Samantha and Mac also offering to watch over him. Everyone was asleep, so Megan got down on her knees next to him.

"Hey" she whispered in a friendly way. "How're you feeling?" Doug's eyes were barely open.

"Cold... Sick..." He then stopped as he tried to open his eyes. "Can I get some fresh air?" Megan slowly helped him into a sitting position and carefully lifted him to his feet, making their way slowly out of the bus, where Mac was outside on guard duty.

"Get some sleep" Megan smiled at him. "We'll take it from here." Mac nodded and headed back into the bus for a couple of hours sleep. Doug and Megan stood watching the fires still burning in Raccoon City. It was now practically a ghost town.

"It's been a rough ride, but it's now over" Doug said with relief. Megan could only agree. Although they were safe now, she was still sad. All those people. The people who had laughed when Chris and the others had returned from the mountains telling people about how Umbrella had started all this and had a secret lab in the mountains and their virus had caused the bizarre murders... These were the same people now wandering the streets of Raccoon City, victims to the Umbrella Corporation's dreams of the perfect weapon. Megan could still remember the day Chris and Jill showed up at her apartment to tell her what had happened to Forest. After all, it wasn't something she could just forget. She didn't want to believe them, but she knew Chris as he was best friends with Forest and Chris wasn't the type to make these sorts of things up. He never believed in ghosts or zombies or anything from horror movies. And the way they explained it... They couldn't have made it up... It all sounded to plausible. Doug had his wallet with him. He always carried it in case he was unable to return to the police station to eat the packed lunch he made for himself every morning and had to get something on the go. He put a quarter into the telescope and was able to get a good look at the city, even if they were about ten miles away. The major buildings of the city could be seen, with the police station acting as the centrepiece. It was easily recognisable with the clock tower on top of it and how grand it was. If Doug zoomed in far enough, he was just able to make out the window he had dived out of as if he was a stuntman in a bad horror movie. After a couple of minutes, the shutters came down, ending what would be his final view of his home town, as they heard the soundtrack to this horror movie's final scene.

"What's that noise?" Megan asked, and the pair started looking around to see what was making it. The noise was a mixture of a rumble with a high pitched whine over the top, the engineering version of a soprano singing over a bass choir. Whatever it was, it was nearby, and at the rate the noise was getting louder, it was approaching at some speed. As they looked around at where they thought the sound was coming from, they saw some red and green lights approaching the city from the north east... directly behind them.

"Look!" Megan exclaimed, pointing at what was making the noise.

It wasn't just one either, there were many. Eight or nine maybe, but when it looked like they had all come out of the clouds, more of them appeared.

"What a magnificent sight" Doug smiled. Even though the end was near, the sight of what they were brought a tear to his eye. Doug was like that though: He was very engineering inclined, even though his first love was history. He preferred a jet turbine to a mobile phone, or a bridge to a microchip. This was a sight that he would remember for the rest of his life. He wished he could take a picture, but all he could do was watch. Megan took hold of Doug's hand as the objects flew over their heads at around fifteen thousand feet.

"Hey! Wake up! You've gotta see this!" Mac called to everyone in the bus. The others had been roused by the noise and got up to have a look, all of them staring at the sky, white vapour trails appearing as the hot exhaust gases met the cold air. The survivors stood behind the protective barrier that stopped people falling down the steep incline of the hill. They were stood behind Doug and Megan, but still had a great view.

"What are they?" one of the female survivors asked as little black objects began to fall from the sky. Doug knew _exactly _what they were.

B-52 bombers.

They could hear the whistles of the bombs falling, and they certainly heard the sounds they made as they hit the ground, causing the tired children to cover their ears and making one little girl cry as the sound was quite loud. It was like when Doug was at University- How he read about the fighting on the Western Front got so bad that the cannons being fired in Belgium could be heard from the south coast of the United Kingdom. Stephen held onto the girl who was crying while everybody stood with their fingers in their ears. Doug, Megan, Samantha, the remaining U.B.C.S members, James, Stephen, the other three children and two women and four men of ages ranging from seven to fifty watched as their town was wiped off the face of the earth. Each of them silently saying their goodbyes to Raccoon City. When the B-52s had passed over into the dawn, an entire squadron of F-16 Falcons flew over their heads, releasing more bombs into the city. In half an hour, Raccoon City was reduced to a pile of rubble.

"That's it" Scott said aloud. "There's nothing more we can do. We should get to Stoneville." They all agreed and everybody got back on the bus without saying a word. Megan took hold of Doug's hand and they headed back to the bus, before stopping as they were about to get on, telling Matt they'd be on in a minute.

"There's something I want to give you" He told her. Megan was confused. Doug reached down to the hip holster and removed the handgun he had taken from Tim's patrol car and handed it to Megan.

"Forest's gun" He told her. The gun had a magazine in it, but the magazine had been emptied. Megan held the gun in both hands, looking down on it, before putting it in the back of her belt and starting to cry, more now than before. Doug put his arms around her and he held her tight, as well as giving her a comforting kiss on the top of the head. They pulled away from each other and he put a hand on her cheek, gently caressing it.

"Get back on board with the others. I'll see you in Stoneville." Mac had heard him say that.

"What are you going to do? You're not going to stay here are you?" Doug laughed as he shook his head.

"If it's alright with you, I'll give you an escort" He smiled. Mac also shook his head and closed the door before starting up the bus once more. Doug climbed back into the police car and started the engine. He impressed the children by doing a burnout on the gravel and spinning the car around before turning on the lights. As this was a traffic car, he decided to have one last bit of fun. The LED message bar in the back of the car had not been damaged by the explosion, so using the laptop in the car, Doug programmed in a message into it:

"Follow me" He then wound down the window and gave Mac a thumbs up, to which Mac replied with a middle finger gesture. Laughing to himself, they started the forty mile drive to Stoneville, the wind blowing through his hair as it entered through the smashed rear window.

On the way to Stoneville, a group of military jeeps passed them, fully loaded with soldiers. None of them turned round to pursue the survivors, partly due to the police car that was escorting them away at about sixty miles an hour. The soldiers were believed by the survivors to be participating in a clean up operation. Not that there was much to clean up anymore, just a fifty square mile pile of rubble, bodies and broken glass. Doug had never been through this part of the world before. He never had any need to visit Stoneville as it was much smaller than Raccoon City, although it had a very good hospital and a police force that spent a lot of time training with the R.P.D. From what he had heard, it was a nice town, but it did have its run down areas, particularly in the city centre. While driving to Stoneville, still another thirty miles up this road, Doug began to fiddle with the radio, trying to find the S.P.D's frequency. While fiddling with the dial, he was met with a lot of static obscuring a voice. After getting the static to clean up, he was able to hear the voice.

"Doug? Doug? Can you hear me? It's Stephen." Doug grabbed the receiver and pressed the button.

"Sure thing Stephen, I hear you, over."

"From everybody on this bus, from the U.B.C.S to the children, we just want to say thank you. Thank you for putting yourself above and beyond the call of duty to save us from that hell hole."

"Just doing my job Stephen" Doug replied. "But thank you anyway. It's all over now. You can all sleep tonight." Relaxing, getting drunk and having a good night's sleep were far from Doug's mind right now. He just wanted his head seen to, but was too macho to show any signs of weakness in the car and in front of everybody. He was even amazed by his ability to still drive with a throbbing headache. He fiddled with the radio again, and was finally able to get Stoneville's police radio frequency.

October 1st- 0845

'Welcome To Stoneville Colorado' the colourful sign displayed as they entered Stoneville city limits. Two police cars were waiting just past the sign and escorted the survivors to a hotel that the mayor of Stoneville had set up to house the survivors. They were shown in by the police officers and shown to individual rooms. They had heard about what had happened in Raccoon City from R.P.D officers who had arrived days before, and all of Stoneville's hotels were turned into hospices so the survivors had somewhere to stay, as well as spare hospital beds and the free will of the townspeople. Doug however drove straight to hospital with Megan, who then took the police car to get the rear window fixed. Given the week's experiences, he wanted to keep that car.

Two hours later he was sitting up on a hospital bed having had stitches applied to his head and having the rest of his body checked since he didn't really have time to properly evaluate his injuries after his window stunt, as well as having been provided with a change of clothes. Samantha came to visit, having bought a change of clothes with the city council's compliments.

"How's the head?" she asked as Doug sat up with his legs dangling over the side.

"Pain's gone" Doug replied. "I also got a shower too. I forgot what hot water felt like. Burnt a little bit though, but they wanted my hair to be clean before they stuck a new bandage on. What about you? Are you alright?"

"I have a job now" Samantha said happily. "The department store next to the police station, it's also where I got these clothes." She gestured to her body, now clad in a new pair of blue jeans, a pair of trainers and a red sweater. Doug was now in a pair of jeans and a pair of black Converse shoes with a black casual button up shirt on, as well as a black casual jacket hanging on a coat hanger. Samantha leaned in and kissed Doug on the cheek. "I'm glad you're okay" she smiled at him before leaving. As she did so, Megan walked in, also in a pair of jeans and wearing a red blouse with a casual jacket and trainers.

"Hey you" Doug laughed as he got to his feet. "Get everything you need?" Megan nodded happily as she felt like everything was once again perfect. The nurse came in to see Doug, and even she had a smile on her face.

"You're good to go now officer." Doug stood up and grabbed his jacket, slipping it on over his shirt. "Try to enjoy the rest of your day, and don't try any hero stuff for a while." Feeling stiff, Doug thanked the nurses and left the hospital with Megan walking beside him. Despite the physical and mental scars brought on by the whole ordeal, they knew that the only way they could go was forward, and they couldn't have been in a better town. While Stoneville wasn't exactly the bustling city Raccoon City used to be, it was the perfect town for them to relax in and for them to get themselves back on their feet.

"So that's basically it" Mr Endsleigh concluded his story as he looked at the clock, having to rush the ending since the bell was about to ring, signalling the end of the day and the term. "That's one account of one of the biggest disasters in US history."

"How do you know all this?" the same pupil who had asked him whether or not it was a police uniform queried. "Do you live next door to this guy or something?" Doug shook his head with his eyes rolled back. His class was clever, but they hadn't worked it out.

"Of course I know him" He laughed. "He's me!" On the desk was a name tag that officers wore on their uniforms as identifying marks that was stuck with velcro onto the S.P.F uniforms, and proper badges for regular officers. It was a little faded and frayed, but it was still readable. Doug applied it to the uniform, completing it. The name tag reading 'Endsleigh'. The class didn't say a word, not knowing that their teacher was once a Raccoon City police officer, the town that had since been rebuilt at a great cost by the government, and by some miracle being around the same size it had been when it was destroyed, maybe bigger. The bell rang, but instead of jumping out of their seats, the class stayed still.

"What happened to the rest of the people who got out?" One pupil asked. "What about Samantha, Megan and Elliot?" Doug sat on his desk.

"That'll have to wait" He told them. "You'd better all go home. Enjoy your Easter break." The class put their desks back where they had got them from and left, leaving Doug alone in his classroom with his old, battered and bloodied uniform. Reaching into another drawer on his desk he got out his mobile phone and rang his wife. The phone rang a few times before a woman on the other end picked it up.

"Hey Meg" Doug said cheerfully. "I'm going to head out to the supermarket for some things. What time are you off duty tonight?" After the phone call, Doug grabbed his jacket, laptop and car keys and left the room, turning the lights off on his way out. The uniform was to spend the Easter break in the dark room, something symbolic to Doug, as it meant he was shutting that part of his life out, and moving forward with his new one. He was one of the lucky ones, and as the sun shone over the Arklay Mountains, his job as teacher teaching people about war and the destruction of civilisations gave him one feeling that only he felt.

The feeling that it was great to be alive.


End file.
